The focus inside the Madhya Pradesh Assembly shifted from theory to practice on Thursday, as the second day of the NeVA training programme got underway in Bhopal. Legislators, seated at their desks with tablets mounted in front of them, spent the day learning the application by actually using it — filing questions, raising adjournment and attention motions online, accessing replies, and searching past proceedings on the digital platform. The three-day programme, is being conducted under the Centre’s ‘One Nation, One Application’ initiative. Speaker Narendra Singh Tomar, who inaugurated the training in the Vidhan Parishad Hall, was present to oversee the proceedings. To ensure personal attention, MLAs have been divided into five batches of 50 members each.

 

Officers on Special Duty and personal assistants, who assist legislators in their daily work, are also attending the sessions in their respective batches. Speaking to reporters inside the Assembly on Day 2 of the training session, BJP MLA Ashish Sharma said the training was now focusing on digital literacy, use of tablets and online research. He described NeVA as a commendable initiative by the Speaker that would make MLAs’ work easier and help them raise public issues and solve constituents’ problems faster. Members from both ruling and opposition parties are participating. The Speaker had on Day 1 underlined the impact of digitisation, noting that the number of questions in a session had risen from 700 in the written system to 4,000 after online submission was introduced. Assembly officials said the House is preparing to migrate its current and historical data to NeVA before the December session and to livestream Question Hour on YouTube, potentially from the winter session. A separate training session for ministers’ staff members is scheduled early next week.