Kerala Assembly speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan announces plans to go paperless

The Kerala assembly is all set to go paperless, Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan announced on Thursday. “I am told the Himachal Pradesh assembly has already taken steps for going paperless… We also aim to achieve this,” the Speaker told reporters here. The upcoming session is set to begin on September 26 and will see 29 sittings, with the last day being November 10. Although all the 140 legislators in Kerala had been asked to submit their questions online, only a handful are doing so, Sreeramakrishnan said. “We will conduct a special training programme to facilitate the adoption of technology… There has to be a proper interface between the legislators and technology,” said the Speaker. Once this is achieved, every member will have a personal computer in front of him in the assembly. At the click of a mouse, he will be able to know every aspect of his constituency such as fund allocation and other details, according to Sreeramakrishnan. The Kerala Speaker has sought the help of Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, who instantly agreed to telecast important debates in the Kerala assembly on the Lok Sabha TV channel. IANS