The following information was provided by Joseph de Souza: "Firstly a website domain name registration costs around Rs 750 per year & the hosting charges around 1500 per year (this varies as per provider and quality of hosting and services offered) Total: Rs 2250 For a static site the the designing and setup charges would typically be in the region of Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000 (depending on the number of pages, requirements and person/firm doing the job) For a dynamic website (website where the end user can update the website by himself/herself e.g. webite using Joomla content management system http://www.infosolutionsgoa.com/cms/installation-configuration-joomla.html) the the designing and setup charges would typically be in the region of Rs 25,000 to Rs60,000 (depending on the number of pages, requirements, type of content management system, customizations, template etc and person/firm doing the job)"
Granted that setting up a website would be expensive, in the short run, why don't Panchayats at least correspond via email? Setting up an email account with any popular email provider like Gmail or Yahoo costs nothing. I had brought this issue up on the 10 November Gram Sabha in Moira, but unfortunately the audience there was not quite prepared to understand that this was the way all correspondence would be conducted in future. They did not understand that already students in school and college in Goa have in their possession laptops and computers. They thought that some special person would be required to handle the correspondence, whereas it can be easily handled by the Secretary or clerks concerned. In fact some of the opposition came from the most unexpected quarters - Venita Coelho stood up to say that their system do not permit this or some such thing. I didn't quite understand this as one can see that if the Govt. of India itself has changed its procedures to allow digital communication why can't the Panchayats do it within a reasonable period. Sooner or later websites will have to be created. Only one person, ex-Sarpanch Vizilia D'Sa seemed aware that Section 4 of the R T I Act obliges every public authority to make voluntary disclosures regarding a variety of procedures, practices etc. In a circular no 1/6/2011/IR dated 15 April 2013 the Department of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, has laid down that public authorities should be proactive in providing voluntary disclosures and its guidelines call for the digitization of information to provide easy access to this information. Sooner or later Panchayats will also have to move towards digitizing its records. I think that citizens should exert pressure to ensure that this process is done sooner rather than later. Regards Augusto Augusto Pinto 40, Novo Portugal Moira, Bardez Goa, India E [email protected] P 0832-2470336 M 9881126350
