By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: Senior Biju Janata Dal MP from Kendrapara in Lok Sabha , Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda has thanked Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for her efforts to make Parliament work paperless. The senior MP also urged geneal public to ensure that thier MPs must go digital.
Panda, who represents Kendrapara Parliamentary segment in Odisha, is a Memeber in Standing Committe on Public Undertakings, Consultative Commitee for Ministry of HRD, Parliamentary Statnding Commitee of Home Affairs. On July 22, 2014, MP Panda had written to Speaker Mahajan urging her to make Parliament work paperless.
Industrialist turned politician Panda, who has experince in both Upper and Lower Houeses of Parliament as MP, however demanding greater use of information technology and digitisation would be great for the environment.“Entire forests’ worth of trees are destroyed every session because of the sheer volume of printed documents,” Panda argued.
Despite some progress such as patchy WiFi in the Central Hall, there was no big breakthrough. Until now. I’m grateful to the Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan Ji for taking interest in this. After some initial steps in recent months, she has now pushed through a big breakthrough for the Lok Sabha , Lok Sabha members have the option of e-filing documents, Panda said.
“Greater use of information technology and digitisation would be great for the environment (entire forests’ worth of trees are destroyed every session because of the sheer volume of printed documents). But equally, it would streamline Parliament’s functioning and vastly improve efficiency. For years I’d been taking it up with various presiding officers, the incumbent Vice Presidents when I was in the Rajya Sabha and Speakers in the Lok Sabha,” Panda twitted in social media Facebook.
“This is a big deal. I hope enough MPs will use it (and that Rajya Sabha should also introduce it) that paper can gradually be discontinued in our Parliament . Please urge your MPs to go digital,” he added in his post.
