AP not to publish Government Orders online to ward off 'troublemakers'
In a surprising development, the Andhra Pradesh government has decided not to post government orders (GOs) online from now. All GOs issued henceforth would not be uploaded on the government's official portal (ap.gov.in).
By Newsmeter Network Published on 17 Aug 2021 10:14 AM GMT
Vijayawada: In a surprising development, the Andhra Pradesh government has decided not to post government orders (GOs) online from now. All GOs issued henceforth would not be uploaded on the government's official portal (ap.gov.in).
Principal secretary R. Mutyala Raju issued an order in this regard on Monday. The order, to be implemented with immediate effect, was taken in line with the system prevailing in other states and regarding government orders and office memoranda, the principal secretary said in the order.
Though the government has not mentioned the exact reasons to keep the GOs offline, sources said that decision was taken to keep away some troublemakers. The government felt that based on the GOs some people are filing pleas in the court leading to unnecessary delays in their implementation. In some cases, the courts have even cancelled the GOs, causing inconvenience to the government.
Mutyala Raju said that the system of generating GO numbers and display of government orders should be done as per the secretariat office manual and the AP government business rules. The system of generating numbers from the GOIR website is hereby dispensed with, the order said.
The principal secretary asked all departments in the secretariat to initiate action and not post any government orders on the website and to keep the GOs issued on a day-to-day basis on offline mode only.
A senior officer with the AP government said that the system of uploading GOs on the government's official portal has been in place since 2008. Except the most confidential GOs, all other documents can be accessed at the click of a button by the public.
It may be recalled that recently AP government has suspended three officials in the finance department including assistant secretary Nagulapati Venkateswarlu on the charge of leaking information to the media. Section officers Kasireddy Varaprasad and D. Sreenu Babu too were suspended. They have been directed to stay put in the headquarters and not leave without the permission from the government. The government has also decided to initiate further disciplinary action against the officials as per the service rules. Principal finance secretary S.S. Rawat said that the government found conclusive evidence that the three officials were passing on sensitive and confidential information from the department and were violating service rules.
