Tamil Nadu: Before being officially digitised, MLAs struggle to edit speeches

CHENNAI: MLAs are facing difficulties in correcting mistakes in their speech copies, which are typed by the Assembly Secretariat. As part of the digitisation of the Assembly Secretariat, copies of the speeches are being sent to the respective MLAs via email.

"No paper copies are being given to the MLAs. They have to take printouts of the copies sent by the Assembly through email. Once the corrections are made by the MLAs, they will be recorded in the Assembly Archives," an Assembly official said.

Under the earlier procedure, printed copies of the MLAs' speeches were typed and given to them. They corrected the copies and returned them to the Assembly Secretariat.

Under the digitisation initiative, the old procedure has been scrapped, and copies are being sent only through email.

However, MLAs are seeking a return to the old procedure. "We have yet to receive our speech copies through email. We have not been provided with proper email IDs and passwords. This procedure is more of a hurdle for us to identify the copies, correct them and return them to the Assembly Secretariat," said three-time MLA A Arunmozhithevan.

He said the Assembly Secretariat should take immediate steps to resolve the issue.

After the approval of the MLAs, the speech copies are finalised and converted into the official speeches of the MLAs in the Assembly records.