Ahmedabad, September 9
The government is planning to put in place a framework for officials that would allow them to leverage the power of the social media, a top official of the Department of Information and Technology (DIT) said here today.

“We are creating a framework that would help Central departments and officials to use social media like Facebook, Twitter effectively,” said Additional Secretary DIT, Shankar Aggarwal.

“We expect to give a final shape to it (framework) over the next two or three months and notify it,” he said.

“The idea is that they can enter into a dialogue with the public more freely, take suggestions, feedbacks and provide updates. It shall be more of a two-way rather than a one-way communication,” Aggarwal stated.

“Social media is being used extensively by civil society, but unfortunately, we do not have any framework for the Central government and state government,” he said.

“The government officials are scared of using the social media because they are not sure whether they are allowed to use it or not,” he added.

Meanwhile, the government is planning to introduce the Right to Public Services Act soon that would make it mandatory for the government entities to deliver public services in an electronic form too.

“We have already created a framework and for this (Act) and the framework is to be converted into a law. We think we will be able to introduce it in the next session of the Parliament and this will become a law,” he said.

“Under this, we shall be trying to ask the government entities to deliver all the public services in an electronic form also. It has to be achieved over the next five years,” he informed.

Aggarwal said they had been planning to develop a payment gateway for the entire country so that the people could pay electronically for various services. — PTI