Stale info on ut Admn website

Chandigarh, January 15
Logging on to the official website of the Chandigarh Administration does not mean that you will get correct information.

As per the website-chandigarh.gov.in-- the population of the city is 9,00,735, the figure of 2001 census report, whereas it has crossed a million mark-10, 54,686 - in the census report, 2011 (released in February), but the officials here are yet to update the information.

Similarly, the website gives ‘stale’ information about the gender ratio, literacy rate and density of population etc. of the city.

In its ‘General Information’ icon, the gender ratio here is being shown as 777 females per 1,000 males, whereas the city’s skewed gender ratio stands at 818 females per 1,000 males. Presently, the city has the second highest per sq-km density of 9,252 but the website still displays the density of 7,900 per sq km.

If you click the ‘administrative structure’ icon, it will still display Ravinder Pal Singh ‘Palli’ as the city’s Mayor. Interestingly, the city had got Raj Bala as its new Mayor on January 2, but when one logs on to the municipal department’s icon, it shows the city’s new Mayor Raj Bala’s profile along with her photograph.

The same icon displays Ritu Chaudhary as the Chief Executive Officer of the Chandigarh Housing Board while the Haryana Civil Service officer Chaudhary has completed her deputation. The UT Administrator had issued orders to relieve her on January 10.

The ‘New Initiatives’ icon still shows the details of those mega projects like Film City, Theme Park, Medi city and Integrated Milk Production Village, which have been shelved by the administration for over one year now.

“An official portal or website is the face of any government or administration. Failure of the administration in updating its website is just contrary to its tall claims about effective e-governance here,” said Sat Pal Kansal, an RTI activist.

The responsibility of updating the website is with the local office of National Informatics Centre (NIC), based on information provided by the UT Administration.