Can you believe information in ministry websites?

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The helicopter crash on Wednesday that killed the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, painfully reminds us of a sad reality—that despite all claims of our technology superiority, we are still a third world nation which is struggling to have some of the basic things in place for the safety, security and disaster management for our people.

And in this case, the people in question included a very important politician and head of the government of one of our largest states and one that is perceived to be one of the most advanced in using technology.

Of course, there are many areas where a little better and reliable technology would have helped. That include the communication system of the helicopter, better connectivity in the area and better satellite technology. After all, we have lost many such important personalities to helicopter crashes in the last few years!

However, what was glaring this time was the confusion that it created, when the search operation was still on. All the TV channels declared that the helicopter was not airworthy. That resulted in the anger being directed towards the people who allowed such an aircraft to carry an important politician as Reddy.

But where did these channels get this information about air worthiness of the helicopter? It was from the ultimate source: Ministry of Civil Aviation. The website of the ministry, to be more precise.

It was only in the late evening that the civil aviation minister himself clarified that the information in the website “was not updated.”

While this extreme incident exposed the lack of credibility of such information posted on the ministry websites, the civil aviation ministry is not an exception. Many other government and ministry websites do not regularly update their information. And depending on that information, as we saw yesterday, could be very confusing.

Five years back, no one would have cared to look at a ministry website for such information. But with some ministries offering such information fairly credibly, the expectation has got built up. And that is a dangerous situation. No information is at least better than wrong information. The price of a decision taken on wrong information could be very costly.

The government, on its part, is trying to incentivize the ministries to improve the content, usability, currency, and relevance of their websites by instituting awards such as Web Ratna. But that is too little, too late.