Delhi Legislative Assembly has put a place a mechanism to provide live telecast of House proceedings on its website in response to an order by Central Information Commission (CIC). The live webcast is available at http://webcast.nic.in/delhiassembly/.
This move for greater transparency in the functioning of legislators comes at a time when political parties are unanimously supporting amendments to the RTI Act to exclude themselves from its purview.
Delhi will be the third state in the country, after Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, to provide live webcast of its assembly proceedings.
The live telecast of proceedings will enable citizens to monitor what their political representatives are doing on their behalf in the legislature – whether they are attending assembly, raising appropriate questions and making relevant laws. CIC in August 2012 had ordered the Delhi assembly to proactively provide information about House proceedings in compliance with Section 4 of the RTI Act.
The CIC in its order directed the assembly secretariat to develop a “hyperlink on their website in order to provide live telecast of the proceedings”. It also asked for information related to proceedings of the Delhi assembly, legislations introduced and passed by the assembly, text of legislations and information on the committees of the assembly to be made available on the official website of the assembly.
