Websites of Admn and Education dept display old,incorrect data

Interestingly,even after a year of Samwartak Singh taking charge as Director Public Instructions (Schools),the RTI section of the Administration’s website (Annexure 9) continues to carry the name of his predecessor S K Setia.

Similarly,present Director Higher Education (DHE) D K Tiwari does not find any mention in the section even though it has been two months since former DHE Raji P Srivastava left. The names are,however,correct in the Education department’s website.

Also,the new registrars for schools and colleges and Assistant Controller (Finance and Accounts) V S Thakur do not find any mention in the Administration’s website despite them being in office for long.

In another slip in Annexure 16 in the same section,the names and designations of public information officers are not correct.

Chandigarh being a Union Territory,the Information Officer,Gurdip Singh,is known as Central Public Information Officer (CPIO). He is also the new registrar (Schools) while Arjun Dev is the present Registrar (Colleges).

However,the website says that the ‘state information officers’ for schools and colleges are A L Nanda and Jagdish Parshad,respectively,both of whom have been shifted to other departments.

Moreover,the assistant state public officers are nameless with only their telephone numbers written against the posts of Superintendent Schools-II and College-I.

While time and again,the Administration,including Home Secretary Ram Niwas has emphasised on revising information on the website regularly,there seems to be little effort towards updating it.

Finance Secretary Sanjay Kumar said the Administration was collecting fresh information. “As per the statutory norms of RTI,the information has to be updated once a year. We are in the process of collating the data and correct information will be made available to users by July.”

Meanwhile,advocate R K Garg says: “Since the Internet has become a major source of information,it is important that facts are updated frequently. And this being a public portal,it becomes all the more important.”