BENGALURU : Despite Bengaluru being the tech capital, the state government’s departments have failed to update their websites and keep pace with the changes. Most official websites of most departments have only changed the photograph of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and ministers concerned, but not the content. If one clicks on the “latest updates” links, contents date back to 2019 or older, not informing a visitor of anything new.
There are over 700 government portals, including those belonging to boards and corporations, societies, directorates, commissionerates, urban local bodies and other agencies.
Government sources told TNIE that these websites get around 4-6 lakh hits per year. “People do not visit our websites a they are not updated with timely information,” they added.
When TNIE visited some government websites on Wednesday, many were not updated. On the agriculture department website, Raitha Mitra, details of schemes for farmers were last updated in July 2022. It is an important portal for farmers, but lacks details. While the Information Department had a 2019-20 annual report, the Horticulture Department had a report from 2017-18.
Some websites have latest news scrolling on the top, including the list of recruitments and promotions, but the ‘’Latest news” links give you information from 2019 or 2021.
Visits to these websites increased substantially only after the state government launched guarantee schemes. “The numbers increased as beneficiaries had to visit government websites to register for Anna Bhagya, Gruha Jyothi, Gruha Laxmi and Yuva Nidhi schemes,” the sources said.
The e-governance department provides website designing and tech support, while updates are done by departments concerned. E-governance department authorities train one person from each department to update details on circulars, notifications, alerts and other information.
Sources from the e-governance department said the websites were earlier designed using the PHP programming language, and now technology has been upgraded to React and Node JS. “The updated websites will be more appealing and user-friendly. Owners of these websites will still be the departments, while we provide tech support,” the sources said. The new technology will be ready in 40 days.