Only 3.3% govt websites comply with guidelines

Government websites are the first point of contact for many common citizens to find information about various initiatives and schemes. The Indian government came up with standard guidelines for all government websites in 2009 and as on date, only 3.3% websites fully comply with those guidelines, according to a report in Factly.in.

As government websites are the first resort to find information about various government initiatives, there has been a lot of emphasis to ensure that all the government websites comply with certain uniform guidelines. Such guidelines for government websites were first issued in 2009.

These guidelines prepared by the National Informatics Center (NIC) were made an integral part of the ‘Central Secretariat Manual of Office Procedure’ and were called the ‘Guidelines of Indian Government Websites (GIGW)’.

Seven years since these guidelines were adopted, a mere 31 of the 957 websites audited were found to be fully complaint according to a latest audit by the Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate.

Guidelines prescribe a matrix of 115 compliance items. The GIGW issued in 2009 specify 115 metrics to bring in standardization and uniformity in government websites. These 115 metrics are categorized into the following nine major heads:

• Govt of India Identifiers
• Building Confidence
• Scope of Content
• Quality of Content
• Design
• Development
• Website Hosting
• Website Promotion
• Website Management

The guidelines have also been categorized into Mandatory, Advisory & Voluntary based on the requirement and importance of each of these metrics.

By: Rakesh Dubbudu