Two months on: Pindi city govt fails to restore its website

Portal suspended for upgradation yet to be activated.

RAWALPINDI: The City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) has failed to restore its website, after taking it down two months back for ‘upgradation’, said an official.

Due to the suspension of the website, people have been facing problems in getting information and updates about different city government departments.

The departments include excise and taxation, the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), the city police, the Rawal and Potohar town administrations, the civil defence department and the water and sanitation agency (Wasa).

The official said the administration had decided to upgrade its website as it was based on older codes and information about many departments and official numbers was missing.

The official said that the RDA has its own website, but it is also devoid of information on how to approach senior officials.

“I am surprised why the website is not functioning despite the fact that the administration is bound to activate and maintain it,” said Muhammad Sirajul Haq, who was waiting outside the excise department to get his car registered.

Haq said that he had recently returned from abroad and wanted information about the excise department’s procedures for registration of a vehicle.

“After failing to get information from the city government’s website, I have to come to the office in person,” he said.

“It is pity that the administration has failed to restore and update the website.”

Many people visiting government offices to seek minor information said the suspension of the website showed incompetence and official apathy towards public issues.

Muhammad Sarwar Satti, who works for the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said that they have been struggling to press the administration to restore the website at the earliest to facilitate the common man, but in vain.

He said he has written many letters to city government authorities but they were not paying heed to the issue. Satti said that sometimes citizens need prompt information about issues of public concern, but the suspension of the website has left them in a lurch.

Meanwhile, a senior Islamabad Capital Territory Administration official said they recently upgraded their website, which had been offline for many years. He said it was a common practice in government departments to ignore the importance of maintaining updated websites. He suggested that the ministries make it obligatory for every department to have a functional website.

Repeated attempts were made to contact Rawalpindi Commissioner Zahid Saeed for comment but he was unavailable.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2014.