BENGALURU: ‘Advanced’ Karnataka government websites lack latest information
Bengaluru: Despite Bengaluru being the tech capital, state government departments have failed to update their websites and keep pace with the changes. The official websites of most departments have changed only the picture of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the ministers concerned, but not the content. If someone clicks on the “Latest Updated” link, the content is from 2019 or earlier, which doesn’t tell the visitor anything new.
There are more than 700 government portals, including portals related to boards and corporations, societies, directorates, commissionerates, urban local bodies and other agencies.
Government sources told TNIE that these websites receive around 4-6 lakh hits per year. “People do not visit our websites because they do not get updated information on time,” he said.
When TNIE visited some government websites on Wednesday, many were not updated. On the agriculture department’s website, Raitha Mitra, details of the schemes for farmers were last updated in July 2022. It is an important portal for farmers but lacks details. While the information department had the annual report for 2019-20, the horticulture department had the report for 2017-18.
Some websites have the latest news scroll across the top, including lists of hires and promotions, but the “Latest News” links give you information for 2019 or 2021.
It was only after the state government launched the guarantee schemes that the visits to these websites increased significantly. “The numbers increased as beneficiaries had to visit government websites to register for Anna Bhagya, Griha Jyoti, Griha Lakshmi and Yuva Nidhi schemes,” sources said.
The e-Governance department provides website designing and technical support, while the updates are done by the concerned departments. Officials from the e-governance department train one person from each department to update details on circulars, notifications, alerts and other information.
Sources in the e-governance department said the websites were earlier designed using PHP programming language, and now the technology has been upgraded to React and Node JS. “The updated websites will be more attractive and user-friendly. The owners of these websites will still be the departments, while we provide technical support,” sources said. The new technology will be ready in 40 days.
