Curious case of spiraling costs to make Karnataka legislature paperless

Six years after the union government offered to transform the Karnataka legislature to make both Houses paperless, officials have missed several deadlines while jacking up the project cost to Rs 254 crore, at least four times more than the original cost.

The National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) is among the high-priority programmes directly supported by the union government under the Digital India programme.

The Centre set up an apex committee in 2015 to monitor the project in states.

The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (MoPA), the nodal agency, prepared a draft detailed project report (DPR) for all states which could be tailored as per need.

Karnataka set up a state-level NeVA implementation committee headed by the chief secretary.

However, the state government communicated that it will adopt an independent module of Digital House, based on a programme implemented in Himachal Pradesh.

Officials of the computer centre at the Karnataka Assembly worked with the National Informatics Centre to prepare a DPR for Rs 60.84 crore.

In August 2018, the government submitted the DPR to MoPA, seeking the Centre’s support: 60% of the cost.

“After that, the project was put on the backburner. When it was taken up again in July 2019, the cost had gone up to 80.64 crore to incorporate secured LAN infrastructure suggested by e-governance wing,” an official said.

When the state-level NeVA committee asked about the progress of the project, Speaker Vishveshwar Hegde Kageri pulled up officials for the delay and suggested getting a 4G exemption to expedite it.

On June 8, 2020, the Assembly secretary wrote to MoPA, referring to the decision of the Assembly speaker that instead of NeVA, the Karnataka legislature should have its own software, according to the Rules of Procedure and Practices followed here.

It said KEONICS has prepared a new DPR with a cost revised to Rs 253.75 crore.

In December 2020, the leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah wrote to the finance department, questioning the proposal to spend Rs 254 crore on a project which could be executed at Rs 60.84 crore. He urged officials to relook into the proposal.

DH accessed the KEONICS report, which said the new DPR has 65 software modules against 28 under the old DPR.

The report spoke of increased automation and other features that will make the Karnataka legislature future-ready.

“Any person with an IT background can see that most of the expenses in new DPR are exorbitant. How can a government agency recommend an expenditure of Rs 42 crore for an ‘open-source’ software? We have to realise that the entire project can be implemented at a fraction of the cost under Centre’s NeVA,” an official who has studied the two DPRs said.

Sources in the finance department said the project cannot be given a 4G exemption.

“Officials at the legislature have been told that they have to go through the tender process,” the sources said.

An official in the legislature acknowledged the problems.

“NeVA was earlier rejected by Karnataka because it was felt that the platform could not support bicameral legislature. It is true that Uttar Pradesh is implementing NeVA’s new version. We are in touch with central officials for more details,” the official said.

Kageri was not available for comments.