Digital Goa Issue 91 December 2013 Dec 2013 | Page 7

www.digitalgoa.com 1 to 31st December 2013 Sorry state of Goa Government websites Dr. Nandkumar M. Kamat A bout half a million Computer and Internet users of Goa need fully functional state government websites. They have waited for ten years for the situation to improve. This is despite the fact that many state government departments have been sitting on precious public funded data. I have benefited a lot from highly accessible and informative, content rich websites of US government. These are models any democracy should be proud of. Goa The much hyped E governance in Goa has come to be equated with IT-phobic politicians’ Ego governance. CM Mr. Parrikar should aim to equal the US government portal ‘firstgov’ - an opportunity which had wasted when he had ruled Goa for 52 months earlier. The great American democracy cares for its’ kids by keeping a special section for them. But in India there is competition between politicians and administrators to hide as much as possible from information Dr. Nandkumar Kamat – An Assistant Professor at Goa University Dr Kamat is a renowned Scientist, Scholar , Researcher and a prolific writer who writes extensively on issues related to Goa and Goans. The citizens need to make “Improve government websites” a mass movement to pressurize the government and get healthy returns for the taxes which they pay to run the same government departments which are refusing website services. hungry public. An exception is the Indian judiciary ( the JUDIS system) and the Ministry of environment and forests-MOEF-both offer in depth contents. CSIR labs like NCL-Pune and NIO, Goa also have a dynamic information policy with up to date and content rich websites. But central government’s ISRO and NRSA score very poorly because they are miserly in offering rich contents. The much hyped E governance in Goa has come to be equated with IT-phobic politicians’ Ego governance. This is the less discussed, uglier side of Goa’s e governance. A state which spent two crores on an IT based experiment called Poll monitoring system scores disastrously on functioning, design, contents and quality of official state government websites. Chief Ministers and IT ministers who ruled in the past had shown scanty interest in this issue. Has anyone checked the disastrous condition of the government of Goa’s 88 official websites ( or webpages since only a handful of departments have taken pain to design and run their own websites) ?. It tells you that no accountability need to be fixed if these websites do not work or offer nothing. The state of the state portal is a shame for this educated and affluent state. The budget documents except the CM’s budget speech are yet to find place on the official portal. The CM is highly tolerant of his own finance department which has nothing to offer on its’ website including the speech of its’ boss. None of these departments welcome people’s complaints, inquiries or suggestions by e-mails. They are under strict instructions not to acknowledge any email. Sending action taken report is just a pipe dream. The former CM Mr. Digambar Kamat had to be persuaded to make arrangements to check the emails sent on his official email Id and acknowledge them. To his credit he did it. A majority of the 88 state government departments do not go beyond just one sketchy webpage. I can make exception for only directorate of printing and stationary, the Government printing press, which underwent a revolution under a dynamic IT savvy director N.D. Agarwal. He showed what others couldn’t do. Because of him now we have official gazettes in pdf format and 162 major legislations of Goa uploaded for free downloads. Free flow of uptodate non classified information boosts economy, enterprise and productivity. It is a mystery why 87 other government departments couldn’t follow his initiative and interest. For past several years the website of department of information and publicity has been ‘under construction”. Asia’s oldest medical college-Goa medical college has almost nothing to offer despite having a mountain of data (Cont on pg. 8) In Focus - This is our space for organizations working in the field of Information Technology If you wish to be featured here send across your details to [email protected] or SMS us on 8805162600 / 7774047410 EVENTS - If you wish to publicize IT events organised by your organisation / firm/ school/collage/club etc. feel free to write to us at [email protected] or SMS us on 8805162600 / 7774047410