Have you ever wondered what the GOs -- government orders -- so ceremoniously issued every day, contain? Why the government files move at a snail's pace? And what exactly the officials write in those files?
In Andhra Pradesh, ordinary people will now be able to find answers to such questions as the state government has lifted the veils of secrecy from some of its functions, by making it compulsory that each of its GO should be available on the Internet as soon as it is issued.
Under the three major initiatives utilizing the information technology, the state has attempted to make its interaction with the citizens smooth, and sharing of information with the people easier.
Suresh Chandra, secretary, IT and communication department told the media in Hyderabad that no government department will be able to issue any GO with out putting it on the Internet.
'Our website will provide live information of the current GOs and any department will be able to come out with its GO only after it generates the number from the computer and instantly it will be published on the Internet," he said.
Departments of the AP government issue an average of 160 GOs and about 104 GOs were issued and published on the Net when Chanda was talking to the reporters.
"Any body can get to see and download the GOs from the website www.goir.ap.gov.in," he said.
"This is an important initiative from the people's point of view because till now they had to run from pillar to post to get a copy of a GO. More over under the manual publication system it was up to the department whether they were publishing the GOs immediately or not. But not it is a completely automatic system," he said.
While all the GOs issued by the state government since February last are available on the Net, the government will soon launch another project to put the archives of the old GOs on line. Similarly all the state government gazettes will also be published on the Net from July 1.
Under another revolutionary initiative, the government proposes to put all the files along with their noting, of different department on the Net so the people can read them , scrutinize them and find their status.
"To start with we have implemented this system called 'KMBank' in the IT department because it is already online and all its files are in digital format," Suresh Chanda said hoping that other department will also follow the queue.
"Under this system a person can go through the file and see what are the notings of different officers and where the file was at a given time," he added.
Officials say this is a very important initiative given the fact that government departments were resisting the idea of making the file notes public under the right to information act.
Another citizen-oriented initiative is "C2G" which will make interface between the government and the common man a lot easier.
"A person will be able to lodge grievances and also provide information to the government through this website and also find the status of his case," Suresh Chanda said.
