The inauguration of two-day National Orientation Workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) and the launch of Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs’ (MoPA) new website, built on Content Management Framework (CMF) were held at the Parliament Library Building on 24th and 25th September 2018. Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal presided over the inaugural session of the workshop, organised by MoPA. Shri SN Tripathi, IAS, Secretary (MoPA), Dr. Neeta Verma, Director General (NIC), Dr. Satyaprakash, IAS, Joint Secretary (MoPA), Smt. Nandita Chaudhri, DDG (NIC), Shri NS Arneja, DDG (NIC) and Shri Mohan Das Viswam, Sr.TD (NIC) and Head (CMF) were among those present during the inaugural session.
During the ceremony, Hon’ble Minister also launched the new website of MoPA, which has been built on Content Management Framework (CMF), an open source platform for standardising the government websites. CMF has been developed by NIC under the Digital India Programme and is envisaged to cover the Central Ministries and Department websites. The new site is enabled with a number of features including access to person with disabilities, mobile responsive, ease of navigation and simplified content updating facility.
In his welcome address, Secretary, MoPA briefed about NeVA. He appreciated the Legislative Houses of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry and Manipur for having started using NeVA.
Dr. Neeta Verma delivered the keynote address and spoke on the various mission mode projects implemented successfully by National Informatics Centre. Dr. Verma also appreciated NeVA and pointed out the salient features of the application. She also invited officials of all the Houses to come on board NeVA and utilise it to its fullest.
Hon’ble Minister of State, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal also administered the Swachhata Pledge to 200+ delegates, which included senior officers from Secretariats of Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, NIC, 31 Legislative Assemblies and 7 Legislative Councils from across the country.
About NeVA NeVA is a work-flow system deployed on Cloud (MeghRaj) which helps the Chair of the House to conduct the proceedings of the House smoothly, Hon’ble members to carry out their duties in the House efficiently and to conduct legislative business of the House in a paperless manner. mNeVA is the user friendly mobile App of NeVA which is available on Android as well as on iOS. mNeVA has made information on the conduct of business in Legislatures accessible anytime, anywhere to everyone.
NeVA Workshop The Orientation Workshop included technical sessions and group discussions over 2 days, which facilitated exposure for the delegates to the attributes of NeVA; deliberations on issues faced by different State Legislatures in implementation of NeVA and finding solutions thereof. The focus of the workshop was to encourage all State Legislatures to move towards NeVA platform and bring in transparency, accountability and responsiveness in their conduct of business, through the use of technology.
From NIC, Smt. Nandita Chaudhri, DDG, Shri N S Arneja, DDG, Shri P Alfred, Sr.TD and Shri Deepak Shirahatti, Sr.TD were amongst the presenters on various aspects of NeVA.
Valedictory Ceremony Concluding session of the two-day long workshop was presided over by the Hon’ble Minister of State, Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Vijay Goel on 25th September 2018 at Parliament Library Building. The CEO of NITI Aayog Shri Amitabh Kant, IAS, also addressed the audience.
Shri Vijay Goel gave away certificates to the delegates. During his speech, the Minister said, “There is a requirement of many changes in the functioning of Parliament.” Shri Amitabh Kant said, “The information is power and simpler and easy to use systems are the need of the hour so that the citizens can easily get all the information they need.” The workshop concluded with vote of thanks by Dr. Satyaprakash, Joint Secretary (MoPA)
NeVA covers, among other areas, List of Business (LOB), Notices, Bulletin-I, Bulletin-II, Starred/ Un-starred Questions including reply by the Departments (Q&A), Bills: Introduced/ under Consideration & Passing, Synopsis of Proceedings, House Proceedings-Verbatim, Committees Reports, Assurances, Rules & Procedures, Digital Library, Provisional Calendar, Reference material, Rotation of Ministries, Contacts, Press Releases etc. The application would host a secure page for each Member of the House for submitting questions & other notices.
A trial run of NeVA has been conducted for Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry and Manipur Assemblies have started using the application. Regular training programmes through video conferencing are being conducted for all the Houses. State level NeVA workshops have been organised in Punjab, Telangana, Sikkim, Karnataka and Bihar.