Govt websites error-prone, lack data: RTI activists

Ahna Prakash | NT
Bengaluru

If you are looking for schemes under the Karnataka women and child development department, you might not find anything on their website. Chances are that on many government sites, if you are trying to look for schemes or the number of beneficiaries, you might come across the message - ‘error 404: this page doesn’t exist.’ RTI activists allege that most Karnataka government websites are either outdated or lack information.

Karnataka RTI and Social Activists Forum President Ram Ramesh Kunigal said that the lack of information on government sites makes it difficult for people to access government data. “When we file an RTI, it takes two months to get the data.

Most of the time, the RTIs are disposed of. So, we rely on the government sites for data and schemes, but then if the website doesn’t have anything. Where do we get the information from,” he said. He also claims that the government launched a portal called Mahiti Kanaja for publishing datasets, but most of the information there is from 2018.

“Some of it is even older than 2015. This is the case with many government sites, they don’t have the latest data. If you check the website of Bescom etc, you will find that even the phone number and email ids of officials are not updated. That leaves us hanging,” he added.

Another RTI activist Suryakant, claims that the government has removed the ‘service report’ section of the Janaseveka scheme. “In 2021, the Janaseveka scheme website showed that more than 50 per cent of the services are still pending. But now, they have removed the entire section of the report. There is no data on how many services were applied or provided. Merely a description in the ‘about’ page mentions that the portal has received over 95,000 applications,” he said.

“Same is the case with the women and child development department, nothing shows under the schemes tab. The latest information from the department’s mid-day meal scheme is from 2013,” he added.

When News Trail spoke to R. Kalpana, the nodal officer in the Department of Women and Child Welfare about their department website not showing any schemes under the ‘schemes and programs’ tab, Kalpana informed us that they haven’t received the data yet. “We still haven’t received data for many schemes. This has also been delayed because of the pandemic. Officials were not able to send data from all over Karnataka. Also, we will look into technical glitches,” she said.

 RTI activists also claim that many departments, like the State Crimes Record Bureau, are not there in the online RTI filing portal. “The idea behind the online RTI portal is to make it accessible to everyone. But on the portal, many departments are missing. So, to get the information, you must visit their office and file a physical RTI. This is time-consuming and also not accessible for people living in remote areas,” said Ramesh.

According to sections 4(1)A and 4(1)B of the Right to Information Act, 2005, government departments must update information about their functioning, programmes, members, budget and statement of procedures on their websites.