Delhi chief secretary assault case: Govt mulling live streaming of official meetings

Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash (File)

In the wake of Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash’s allegations of assault at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence last week, the Delhi government has proposed live streaming of the meetings of officers with ministers, officials said on Monday.

Prakash was allegedly assaulted by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs and others during a meeting at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence on February 19.

A senior government official, on condition of anomity, said that as per the plan, a live feed of meetings with the audio output will be available on a website. The government is likely to allocate funds for the project in the upcoming budget if the plan is cleared, the official said.

“By live streaming the official meetings, people will be able to know who spoke what in the meeting, be it the elected representative or officials,” the official said.

The proposal is being floated by the Delhi government in a bid to reduce its ongoing tension with officers who have been boycotting the meetings ever since the alleged assault took place. “The plan is to put all the file movement and notings online for people to see who is working on a file and for how long, who cleared it and who wrote what on a particular file,” the officer said.

While AAP has maintained that the problem with the bureaucracy has been the lack of accountability among its officers over work, the officers haave alleged that ministers often seemed “unaware of necessary protocols”.

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