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Ever emailed an Indian bureaucrat? Or any other government official?
Dont waste your time. They wont reply.
Ive sent emails to 17 officials this year, in various ICT departments of the
center and statesthe tech savvy parts of the government. I got four responses.
And Ive sent 130 emails to senior people in the private sector, with 123
responses.
The problem starts with the fact that government officials do not have an
official email address of their own. They use obtuse and anonymous addresses
like asegov@mit.gov.in or itsecy@banglaoreitbt.in (though the gentlemen behind
these two addresses are among the rare few BlackBerry-toting quick responders).
Everywhere in the corporate world, email addresses belong to people, not to
office chairs. My address is pkr@cybermedia.co.in. If it had been editor@dataquest.in,
I would have had very little connect with that email address, and would have
been quite happy ignoring emails sent to it.
When Anil Gupta joins Microsoft or HP, his address is anilg@microsoft.com or
anil.gupta@hp.com. Anywhere. Even if he changes departments, or countries. If he
joined the US embassy in Delhi or London, he would be GuptaA@state.gov. And if
he got an email, hed be inclined to reply.
If, however, he joined the Government of India, he would get a nice,
anonymous address like fs@chdut.nic.in (if he were Chandigarhs finance
secretary) or fsfin@nic.in (in Delhi). Addresses are not even consistent from
one state to the other. If he became governor or chief minister of Karnataka,
his address would become rbblr@vsnl.com, or cm@kar.nic.in. You think hed bother
to reply?
Its a shame that the worlds largest democracy, an emerging tech superpower,
has a government that does not use email.
Its top officials hide behind the anonymity of office-chair email addresses,
with personal assistants to (sometimes) read their mail.
Many of those government officials are big email users at home, with Hotmail
and Gmail addresses. Theyre also big users of Skype.
Getting government officials to use technology is a key step to better
governance. By allowing a system to flourish where senior officials do not
access their email, we are doing a disservice to them, to the system, and to the
public.
The rare official who responds on email, and uses an email address with his
name in it, quickly builds up a connect with his target constituency. (A former
IT secretary of West Bengal is known for his quick mail response, and his
overall effectiveness.)
The government needs a consistent email addresses system, naming people, not
office chairs. Such as anil.gupta@ias.in or
pratibha.patil@india.gov.in
This will be a key step to getting government officials to use email, to
bring them closer to the citizen, to corporate India, and to each other
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