Acting on a representation, the department of IT and electronics issued a direction to all the departmental principal secretaries, commissioners and district magistrates of Uttar Pradesh to ensure that only e-mail services provided by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) are used for official communication.
In April, 2022, Syed Mohammed Haider Rizvi, a Lucknow based corporate lawyer wrote to the director general of police, the additional chief secretary (home) and the additional chief secretary (department of IT and electronics) after conducting a personal research, across various websites of the state police, departments and statutory commissions, that most functionaries were using ids provided by commercial, free e-mail providers.
“…except a few departments like the commercial tax, environment, forest and climate change department ...most of the e-mail IDs which are being operated in the names of the public functionaries of various ranks, aiming to receive complaints, issues, representations and concerns of citizens are operating via unsecured/ gmail/ other “free” mail accounts, which are either having limited bandwidth/ storage, or else the concerned officers/staff who handle the said accounts do not follow any SOPs for handling the said account, what to speak of archival and password sharing of the said accounts, which, in most of the times are held by personal secretaries/ readers/contractual employees whose sweet will is what matters in matters which are highly sensitive, mandating an action of the concerned officer in whose name the said gmail/ymail and other private email accounts”, read the representation.
Besides being a security concern, such as being at risk for cyber attacks, use of such accounts is also made inconvenient by the fact that when an employee would retire his personal account would become useless for public purposes. Such a system is also open to fraudsters creating accounts in official sounding names.
Such accounts are also in violation of the e-mail policy of the Government of India which states, “…Only the e-mail services provided by NIC, the Implementing Agency of the Government of India shall be used for official communications by all organisations except those exempted. e-mail services provided by other service providers shall not be used for any official communication.”
On July 28, an order issued by an additional chief secretary of the state government made it mandatory that only e-mail services provided by the NIC were to be used for official communication. The order also notes that in matters of e-mail account management, two ids would be created—one in the name of the concerned officer and the other in the name of the designation. “Designation based ids are recommended for officers dealing with the public,” says the order which has been issued to secretaries of all level, divisional commissioners and district magistrates.
Haider said, “This is a major respite for a state which suffers from the vice of irresponsive bureaucracy which hardly adheres to norms…this (is) a major step which will not only ensure adherence to norms...but shall also ensure accountability and transparency in government decisions, a cherished dream of our honorable Prime Minister”.
