Digital Goa Issue 91 December 2013 Dec 2013

www.digitalgoa.com 1 to 31st December 2013 Blatant Violation of RTI Act by Govt Websites RTI Forum to go on hunger strike in protest: CIC expresses discontent December 2013 - Despite several deadlines from the center, latest being on 10th December 2013, Goa Government has miserably failed to comply with Section 4 of the RTI Act 2005 which stipulates Suo Motu proactive disclosure of Information on the Government websites for bringing about transparency in Governance. The state portal -- www.goa.gov. in -- and over 88 other websites of the state government are grossly violating Section 4 of the RTI act 2005. But a more repulsive fact is the pathetic state of the centralized website http://egov.goa.nic.in/rtipublic which is supposedly dedicated to information disseminated by Timeline of RTI Guidelines for Suo Motu proactive disclosures and deadlines in the year 2013 * 10 th Dec 2013 - Reminder for compliance and corresponding reports * 21st Nov 2013 - Additional guidelines with emphasis on Public Distribution Systems (PDS) and Educational Institutions * 15th April 2013- memorandum for Suo Motu proactive disclosure of information with 6 months deadline (which ended in October 2013) Prior to this guidelines and clarifications were issued time and again on RTI act 2005 in 2008, 2010, 2011 for proactive disclosure of information. various departments under RTI act 2005. The website designed by NIC has not been updated since 2009 but is mentioned everywhere as official RTI website of Government of Goa. And most importantly the Information Commissioners website itself is not updated for ages now. To protest against this apathy (Cont on pg 9) Citizens asked to shell out thousands for information which should have been in public domain by default Government departments fail to proactively upload information in the public domain on their websites and therefore citizens are compelled to file RTI applications even for trivial information. In response to RTI application questions government departments usually answer by giving references to circulars, annexure, contracts etc . If one wants to actually see or use these documents, the citizen is asked to shell out thousands of rupees for photocopying these documents which actually should have been on the government websites. For obvious reasons, option for E-documents (softcopies) is not available. So you either shell out thousands of rupees and get the information or refrain from asking for any information and raising your voice against flaunting of public funds. We filed an RTI with Department of Information technology on a ‘white elephant’ PPP project and were given a reply in which every second question of ours was answered as - reference to document so and so. In the end we were ‘advised’ to pay over 800 Rs to get the referred documents photocopied! These documents should have been in the public domain as per office memorandum reference no No.1/6/2011-IR issued by Government of India which states clearly If Public services are proposed to be provided through a Public Private Partnership (PPP), all information relating to the PPPs must be disclosed in the public domain by the Public Authority entering into the PPP contract/concession agreement. E-Governance is a powerful tool for G-Governance - Leena Mehendale 3 Sorry state of Goa Government websites -Dr Nandkumar Kamat 4 E-governance in Goa s�ll in its infancy – Venkatesh Prabhu 10 BLITS –Powered by Technology & Intelligence 11