AP Govt Agrees To Be Transparent – But Only Partially

Andhra Pradesh Government has decided to take down the G.O.s from internet after they are causing inconvenience from the Opposition for obvious reasons. There is a huge public outcry over this decision saying that it infringes Right to Information of the citizens.

The Government has retracted from its decision but only partially. The G.O.s were made available by the AP e-Gazette. Chief Secretary to the Government (CS) Adityanath Das has issued orders to this effect. The government has said it will keep the details in the e-Gazette without violating the rights of the Right to Information Act as the G.O. IR website has been shut down.

The Government also made it clear that it would not make available to the public personal information that was not required like small amounts of expenses, officers’ leave, and other items to be kept confidential. The government claims that all G.O.s will be available with the digital signature of the concerned officials.

However, the exceptions the Government claims is the real contention here. These are the ones that really matters, the Opposition says. They are demanding that all G.O.s should be in public domain with no frills as in the practice until now.