SrinagarDespite the tall claims of the e-governance made by the state authorities, the official website of the state tourism department hosts obsolete content for the past five months with officials caring little to update the website.
As on June 22, under the GAD order no. (802-GSD of 2017) dated June 22, 2017, Farooq Ahmad Shah, Secretary to the Government Tourism and Floriculture, Parks and Gardens department, holding the additional charge of administrative Secretary, School Education department was transferred and posted as Secretary to the Government, School Education department, on regular basis, the official website of the tourism department still has Shah as the Secretary Tourism.
On the website http://www.jktourism.org in the section who is who it is informed to the netizens that Shah holds the post of the secretary in the department.
Repeated attempts to call the concerned officials of the tourism department for comments didnt fructify as they didnt answer any of the calls.
Pertinently, in the era of Information Technology, the much-hyped e-governance in Jammu and Kashmir is proving to be a big failure. While the issue of data collection for proactive disclosure of information under the Right to Information Act-2009 is still a distant dream, most of the government websites are completely defunct or carry wrong and outdated information.
Furthermore, there has been very little compliance with Section 4 of the legislation which makes it obligatory for a public authority [department falling under RTI Act] to maintain all its records and indexed in a manner and form which facilitates the right to information. It also calls for ensuring that all records that are appropriate to be computerized are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerized and connected through a network all over the state on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated.
What is more ironic is that the State Chief Information Commissioner in the year 2011 had formally informed the State Chief Secretary that there is not so encouraging response from Public Authorities with regard to implementation of Section 4 of the Act.
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