Govt website in private hands, yet not updated

HYDERABAD: Who is the Director General of Police? If you go by the state government’s web site — aponline.gov.in, it is P Ramulu. The web site still carries information that is a few months old.
The departmental listing for the police department states that P Ramulu, now retired and serving in the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC), is still the Director General of Police, and that A Siva Sankar, who was shifted to Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC), is still the IG, Intelligence.
Designed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a Tata company, ‘aponline.gov.in’ is meant to be the flagship site for the state. Many of the links on the site have incomplete or outdated information. Surprisingly, the copyrights of the site are not held by the state government, but by TCS, a privately-held company in spite of the fact that the ‘.gov.in’ top level domain is only meant for government sites. This is a case of cyber land grabbing, a government official said.
Just the other day, Andhra Pradesh bagged a number of awards for its e-governance initiatives. “If the state is deserving of the awards, then why such stale information on the frontline sites, which are supposedly accessed by thousands of browsers on a daily basis,� the official queries.
One common reaction from sources is that things in the government only happen when the chief minister himself gets involved. The official machinery seems to be lost in the maze of paperwork and the e-governance initiatives are very soon orphaned, the official added. “About the much-hyped public-private partnerships, the less-talked about, the better,� he added.
Raghu Kumar, an expert in computer security and website design said, “the vendor selection process for most of the e-governance initiatives reek of corruption and red tape. They are no different from the tenders for civil works when it comes to cartels and underhand dealings.�
What is even more disturbing is the fact that maintaining up-to-date information on these sites does not involve any rocket science.