West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Friday called for modernisation of the state Legislative Assembly, saying its infrastructure, digital systems and public outreach must be upgraded to meet the expectations of a modern legislature.
Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day orientation programme for newly elected West Bengal MLAs in Kolkata’s New Town, Adhikari said the Assembly had significant scope for improvement and stressed the need to make its functioning more transparent and accessible.
“The Assembly needs a lot of work,” the Chief Minister said at the New Town Convention Centre, sharing that his government has requested the Speaker to introduce live telecasts of House proceedings so that people could follow legislative business.
“We had requested the Speaker to make the proceedings live. It was not there before,” Adhikari said, adding that now people could see what goes on at the floor of the house which creates accountability among the MLAs.
The Chief Minister also highlighted the need to modernise the Assembly’s internal functioning, while expressing disappointment that voting inside the House continued to rely on paper ballots.
“It is unfortunate that voting here is still on paper. Electronic voting is not available in the Assembly till now,” he said.
Adhikari said the legislature should embrace digital technology across its operations and improve its physical infrastructure.
“The West Bengal Assembly infrastructure must be developed. A digital system must be introduced in the Assembly,” he said.
He also called for the Assembly’s library, museum and other institutional facilities to be upgraded and made more accessible to the public.
His remarks came on a day Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju announced that the Centre would provide a 100 per cent financial grant to digitise the West Bengal Legislative Assembly under the National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA).
Rijiju said the project, for which a Memorandum of Understanding has already been signed, would transform the Assembly into a fully digital legislature and enable members to access legislative business and official documents electronically.
The two-day orientation programme, inaugurated by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, has been organised jointly by the Parliamentary Research and Training Institute for Democracies (PRIDE), under the Lok Sabha Secretariat, and the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.