Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker Thammineni Seetharam has emphasised the need for all the Acts of Parliament and State Legislatures to be put in public domain in 22 languages specified in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
Mr. Seetharam also said that the Legislatures should avail the social media services in order to involve people in the legislative processes and for increasing transparency and accountability.
Besides, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies should be used for modernising the Legislatures and towards building trust in democratic institutions, he observed.
Addressing a workshop on the theme, ‘A People’s Parliament: Accessibility through Innovation’, organised as part of the 65th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference at Halifax in Canada on Wednesday, Mr. Seetharam said social media was not being used properly in parliamentary affairs due to the need to keep certain things confidential, but it should not be completely ignored.
By utilising Information & Communications Technologies (ICT), legislators could keep in touch with the people in a far better manner than what is in practice,” he suggested.
Training for legislators
Further, he said special training in computer applications was required for legislators and staff of the Legislatures.
“In today’s wired world, Legislatures must capitalise on the benefits of ICT to function effectively and interact with the people for greater collaboration among them,” he said.
On its part, the AP Legislature had taken up computerisation of the Secretariat in a full-fledged manner. It had been making house proceedings available in a digitised format since 1953 and maintaining a website since 2014 (when the unified State of Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated), Mr. Seetharam added.
