MyGovGoa Portal Launch : A Sad Story
MyGovGo is merely, a hasty lip-service, rather than a genuine attempt to build bridge with people of Goa
On 4th of August 2020, Goa became the 13th State to launch My Gov Goa service (website).
Essentially, the aim through My Gov portals is to connect the people directly with the government which they elected, thus building a direct bridge through which the citizens can reach out with their suggestions, issues to the government officials.
MyGovGoa was launched by the Chief Minister Mr.Pramod Sawant, with the same fanfare and promise of eternal salvation for the state citizens, like which every other government schemes are launched. A kind of panacea, you may say.
When the world is battling with the Covid-19 pandemic, this shall seem like a logical step, with most of the services being now migrating online, so why should the citizen-government dialogue be any different.
MyGovGoa like portals which aim to connect two facets, share the same conundrum; the eggs wont hatch until chicken are there, but chicken won't come unless eggs are there. But for a government portal aiming to empower citizens, this is not a big problem, thankfully. If the portal has active participation from the government side, the citizens shall definitely flock to it.
If we take a look at the portal, currently there are only 148 registered members on the site, with 3 active discussions and 12 comments. There has not been a single submission on the 'Tasks' section in last 3 odd days.
It seems aptly, that not even primary members of ruling party of the government of Goa are interested in this initiative or may be they have alternate & higher frequency channel to reach to the government.
For that matter, Government Of Goa has 179 departments.
MyGovGoa portal works under the 'Information & Technology Ministry' under which comes the 'Startup' portfolio. If the aim of launch was sincerely to promote citizen participation in governance, instead of a hasty lip-service, all bang and no substance launch, it would have been done in a methodical manner.
The funny thing is that the site whose sole aim is to promote citizen participation, is seemed to be put up online without any consultation or rather without any solicitation of ideas. And this reflects in the performance so far of the initiative, after grand media coverage and big talks from all the ministers concerned.
The reason for such a hasty show is the first thing which the people of Goa must fathom out, before venturing out in deeper waters. Anyway, with just 3 topsy-turvy fill-in-the-blanks type 'discussion topics', expecting people participation is the epitome of optimism.
There was an opportunity, where 'MyGovGoa' could have been actually more than a lip-service, rather than a boastful chest-thumping 5 second phenomena, but that is lost sadly.
How to win back people's confidence, is not too difficult and is in fact, just common-sense, but there has to be an ardent urge and enthusiastic zeal to do it, at least from one minuscule part of the government and it's administration. Looking at the pathetic state of the portal, it seems there is no such soul present so far in the entire Goa government machinery.
In few words, My Gov Goa : A Sad Story.
PS : How do you think this could have done in an ideal way?