By NewsGram Staff Writer
Rs 1 crore is spent by the three divisions of Municipal Corporation of Delhi every month for maintaining their common website and yet it has proved to be defunct. Many of the functions such as RTI filing and 'workbench' don't work properly.
The erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi had signed an agreement with Tech Mahindra in March 2010 to implement the project at a cost of Rs 180 crores. Officials from South Delhi Corporation, however, claimed that it's the responsibility of Tech Mahindra to ensure the proper functioning of the website.
"A case was filed in the Delhi high court and in its ruling we were directed to pay an amount of Rs 1 crore every month to Tech Mahindra," an official of South Corporation said.
An RTI filed by activist Vedpal said, "The corporations are spending so much money on the website but it is rarely updated. They should at least keep track as Rs 12 crores is being wasted every year and this is taxpayers' money."
"We accept there are issues with the website and that most of the options are not working properly. But it is due to technical complications and we have set a deadline for Tech Mahindra to solve them," said Ravinder Gupta, North Corporation mayor.
"On one hand, the corporation claims it has no money for development, and on the other they are wasting it on maintenance of a website which has no info. There is hardly any update from any departments and residents keep complaining that the website is of no use. This is a serious issue," said Abhishek Dutt, local councilor of South Extension.
The BJP-led municipal corporations have failed to do justice to their e-governance project. It seems that the act of civic agencies of deactivating the link to file Right to Information (RTI) online is the part of this unjustified corruption. Citing technical issues as a reason, the facility was deactivated from their website.
Several years have passed and the link to file RTI online remains deactivated, failing to maintain their services, the political wing of all the three corporations remains unaware of the situation.