Aarogya Setu: Govt. cracks down on officials over evasive RTI reply

The move comes a day after CIC issued a show-cause notice over the Ministry’s and NIC’s reply to an RTI.

KARNATAKA: BENGALURU: 14/04/2020: Children downloading Arogya Setu app in Bengaluru on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to download Arogya Setu app (by leveraging technology, it provides important information) to fight for Covid-19. in his speech on Tuesday. India has entered 21-day nationwide lockdown over the highly contagious Covid-19. India is now locked down and loaded in its fight against the COVID-19 (Coronavirus). Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday (24 th Mar 2020) announced a 21-day nationwide shutdown in an effort to break the chain of transmission. Photo Somashekar G R N

A day after it was slammed by the Central Information Commission over “preposterous” and “evasive” response to an RTI query related to the Aarogya Setu application, the IT Ministry has issued directions to take action against the officers responsible.

“The Ministry has taken the lapses made in providing information on Arogya Setu app very strictly. We have issued directions to initiate suitable action against the officers responsible for this,” an IT Ministry official, who did not want to be named, said.

The official added that the Ministry has also directed the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and National E-Governance Division (NeGD) to take suitable action against the officers dealing with the RTI query.

“We are committed to furnish all the information sought under the RTI Act to the applicant and comply with the directions of the Central Information Commission (CIC),” the official said.

The move comes a day after CIC issued a show-cause notice over the Ministry’s and NIC’s reply to an RTI stating that they do not have any information about the “creation” of the Aarogya Setu application promoted by the government to contain the spread of COVID 19. The CIC termed the response as “preposterous” and issued a show cause notice to the NIC to explain why a penalty under the RTI Act not be slapped on it for “prima facie obstruction of information and providing an evasive reply”.

Following this, the Ministry had clarified that the Aarogya Setu application has been developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) in collaboration with volunteers from industry and academia. It said on Wednesday that the app has been developed in the most transparent manner and all details and documents including Privacy Policy and Aarogya Setu Data Access and Knowledge Sharing Protocols issued on May 11, 2020 have been uploaded on the Aarogya Setu Portal.