Hyderabad: The TS government’s proposed ban on officials and staff from using private email services like Gmail, Yahoo, Rediff etc for government correspondences is yet to take off even after six months.
The Centre had in 2015 banned private email services and made it mandatory for all officials and staff to use only state-owned services for official communication citing security reasons. The TS government’s proposal, mooted in January 2016, was seen as an endorsement of the Centre's policy.
However, six months on, officials and staff in all state departments continue to use private email services for government correspondence. Except IT minister K.T. Rama Rao and staff in his department, ministers and senior officials in other departments do not have official email IDs.
Officials and staff in key departments like home, finance, revenue, general administration, law, who handle confidential information continue to use private email services for communication.
While the objective of new policy was to ensure secure access and usage of TS email services, the Information Technology department has failed to coordinate with other departments in implementing the same.
A glance at the official Telangana State website reveals that most of the officials and staff in all the departments continue to use private email services.
