I read your follow-up article on "Missed gram sabhas" and was glad to learn about the NIRNAY website that provides information on gram sabha meetings. While I am proud that we are moving in this direction, my personal experience with government technology is quite different. I recently used the RTO website for a learner’s licence for my ward. The site was slow, navigation was user-unfriendly and the payment page showed an "unsecured network" error. Most panchayats still do not have an online property tax payment option. For name transfers, they demand heaps of documents and a notarized undertaking despite Aadhaar authentication and biometric validation being available online. The same applies to the Electricity and PWD departments. The Forest department runs multiple sub-departments on physical registers with inward/outward entries. RTI is online, yet GSIC staff themselves called me to submit physical printouts of my second appeal. Emails are replied to through postal letters. I have also never received any reply from the official CM email ID `[email protected]`. Unless all departments are brought on board with secure, functional and paperless systems, "Digital Goa" will remain only on paper.
ALWYN FERNANDES, Benaulim
