Launched in 2016, the Pune Municipal Company’s Open Information portal was meant to supply residents with simple and dependable entry to knowledge collected by its varied departments. Nonetheless, aside from a single add in 2021, the location has seen no updates within the final six years. So as to add salt to harm, even the information that’s up on the web site will not be accessible because the recordsdata are corrupted.
“They’ve made a portal however will not be updating it. It is a waste of cash. The precept of RTI is that the information ought to be out there and other people shouldn’t need to file RTIs for all the pieces,” Proper to Info (RTI) activist Vivek Velankir stated.
The Open Information portal contains knowledge units like highway statistics, college enrolment knowledge, air air pollution statistics, tree plantation numbers, start and dying charges, and many others – knowledge essential to researchers, journalists and activists, and to residents who wish to know extra about their neighbourhoods and metropolis.
The PMC web site’s Open Information part describes why the portal was created. It says, “..a big quantum of presidency knowledge stays inaccessible to residents, civil society…(which) could possibly be utilized by public for social, financial and developmental functions…Opening of presidency knowledge in open codecs would improve transparency and accountability whereas encouraging public engagement…Pune DataStore has been arrange at http://opendata.punecorporation.org/ to supply collated entry to Sources (datasets/apps) below Departments printed in open format. It additionally supplies a search & discovery mechanism for immediate entry to desired datasets.”
Nonetheless, the portal falls fully wanting attaining these praiseworthy objectives. The most recent knowledge set out there on the portal is ‘PMPML Yearly Info’ from August 2021. Information units of a lot of the different 26 departments like training, civil roads, police, heritage and many others. haven’t been up to date since 2017-2018.
The web site additionally lacks an SSL protocol certificates (https), prompting the online browser to point out a ‘not safe’ warning whereas accessing it. Even the outdated knowledge units out there on the web sites can’t be used because the recordsdata are corrupted and don’t open after downloading.
Swapnil Mahajan, a marketing consultant on the PMC’s IT division, admitted there was a problem. “Backend expertise for the web site is outdated. We’re revamping the backend stack utilizing React and Spring Boot. The work is ongoing and can finish in just a few months. The web site shall be fully modified and revamped,” he defined.
In the meantime, Rahul Jagtap, Chief Information Officer, PMC, had one other clarification. “We’ve stopped updating knowledge on this web site and replace it on the central authorities’s Sensible Metropolis portal. The revamped Pune Open Information web site shall be prepared within the subsequent 3-4 months,” Jagtap instructed The Indian Categorical.
Anjali Salar, an engineer on the PMC’s IT division, additionally stated they haven’t been capable of replace knowledge on the portal as a consequence of “technical difficulties”. “As soon as the brand new web site is made we can replace the information. However newer knowledge of Pune metropolis is obtainable on the central authorities’s Sensible Metropolis portal,” Salar added.
Nonetheless, even the information on the smartcities.knowledge.gov.in portal for Pune metropolis has not been up to date often. For instance, ‘Schooling Information: Pune’ has solely 4 knowledge units from 2021.
Aditya Chawande, city designer at NGO Parisar, highlighted how the dearth of availability of Pune metropolis knowledge impacts residents. “We labored on an Toddler Toddler Caregiver Mobility Plan together with World Sources Institute for which we wanted knowledge on anganwadis, faculties, hospitals, and many others. This was in 2022-2023 however no knowledge was out there. We needed to get particular entry from the PMC however that knowledge was not mature sufficient. This exhibits the poor state of information assortment in Pune. Even the information that’s collected will not be accessible for the frequent citizen,” Chawande stated.
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