HYDERABAD: “Even trees and sheep have digital presence under Telangana schemes, but where is the State Women’s Commission Website?” Putting a dent in the glorious IT image of Telangana, a petition on Change.org is now asking where the website for the State’s women commission is?
The petitioner, Spurthi Kolipaka, a social worker who started the petition two weeks ago, highlights how Telangana has a robust online presence for majority of it’s schemes but does no justice to the women’s commission. A simple internet search for Telangana State Women’s Commission throws up the list of various State commissions under the National Commission for Women (NCW), their members and respective websites.
The Telangana option throws up the names of the old committee members without a website link. This is in stark contrast to the States like - Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala - which have robust websites. While the Kerala site notifies about ‘adalats’ scheduled for the month, the website of Jharkhand allows for lodging complaints online on a range of issues like NRI marriages, police apathy, harassment of widows,etc. These issues are quite pertinent to Telangana as well.
“I tried calling the number but nobody picks up. As a lay man I don’t know what are their plans, what has been their past work and what budget they get? We claim to be the number one state in digital transformation. When Telangana’s trees and sheep can be geo-tagged, why is a simple website so difficult to sort out,” asks Spurthi, speaking to the New Indian Express.
Meanwhile, Tripurana Venkata Ratnam, former chairperson of the State commission who is presently serving at the NCW, said that the work on the website was underway. “Till now we have received complaints via post, in-person, telephone and even on whatsapp,” said Tripurana. The Department of Women Development and Child Welfare has still not chosen a chairperson for the commission, the post for which has been vacant since June 2018.
