97% Government websites fail to impress, asked to mend ways

One look at the ministry-operated websites of Indian government and you can be sure that they are not up to the mark. This is why these websites are often made fun of, something which is beginning to irk the centre, it seems.

The centre has now directed all the ministries that government websites should be taken seriously now. It has also directed that these websites should figure among the top five results when relevant keywords are put in search engines. Not only this, if the government is paying the mobile and landline bills of bureaucrats, their numbers should be made available online.

These instructions are a part of the 115 guidelines that the ministries have received from the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), led by PM Modi.

The government believes that these guidelines, when followed, would boost the PM’s agenda of 'Digital India' and 'Minimum government, maximum governance'.

It was on 25th May that DARPG secretary C Vishwanath had written to the secretaries of all ministries, seeing the audit results of 957 government websites, 97% of which failed to comply with the 'Guidelines of Indian Government Websites' (GIGW).

"Recently, the Standard Testing and Quality Certification Directorate has done the audit of 957 government websites and it was found that only 31 of them were GIGW compliant," the DARPG secretary said in his letter.


Specifically, Vishwanath reminded the secretaries that as per the guidelines, all central government websites must be bilingual, opening in Hindi by default and having an option of being converted in English, not vice versa.

Moreover, all electronic commerce transactions done on a government website have been asked to be handled safely and a mechanism should be put in place which ensures timely response to the queries received.

Also, the guidelines ask for the discussion forums to be closely watched, adding that the websites should be free of "offensive/discriminatory language."

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