THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government has postponed the upgrade of e-Office and its temporary suspension that had been planned to facilitate the process.
e-Office is a digital platform used by the government to manage official files, correspondence and government orders electronically.
Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan had on Friday written to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Rathan U Kelkar, raising concern over the government’s decision to roll out a new version of the system when the Model Code of Conduct was in force.
He claimed that contentious files could be manipulated or processed improperly under cover of the upgrade.
The government said the postponement was based on a direction from the CEO, but for a different reason. “The CEO office also works on the e-Office system. Hence, they requested to postpone the upgrade till the election process is over. Based on this, we decided to defer the upgrade,” said an officer.
“It is a regular process and has been done many times in the past. The current upgrade was originally planned earlier but had to be postponed more than once,” he added.
In his letter, Satheesan had argued that the temporary shift to manual processes would weaken the audit trail of official decisions and create room for misuse.
“This creates a possibility of misuse during a sensitive election period when strict adherence to transparency and accountability is essential,” he said. The government circular on the phased rollout of e-Office version 7.3.15 was issued on March 31. The upgrade was scheduled between 10 pm on April 10 and 10 am on April 15, during which the system would have remained completely inaccessible, halting the regular digital process for handling files and issuing government orders.
The circular also directed that all pending drafts be cleared before 3 pm on April 10, and that no new government orders be initiated in the system thereafter. In emergencies, orders could be issued in hard copy with details to be entered into the system later, it said.