Who Signed This? Twitter Unhappy with Aarogya Setu Press Release
The CIC has issued show cause notices to officers of the ministry.
advertisement
On 28 October, an RTI inquiry by activist Saurav Das revealed that the government was unable to give a concrete answer as to who created the Aarogya Setu app. The Central Information Commission (CIC) served show cause notices to information officers in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for giving "evasive answers" about who created the app.
The CIC has also asked the National Information Centre (NIC) – which falls under MeitY – to explain how the ministry has no information about the creation of the app, even though the Aarogya Setu website claims that the platform is designed, developed and hosted by the NIC, with content owned, updated and maintained by MyGov (also under MeitY).
This sparked strong reactions from social media users.
Later, a clarification was issued by the official Twitter account of Aarogya Setu app. The press release states "there should be no doubt with regard to the Aarogya Setu App and its role in helping contain COVID19 Pandemic in India" and that it is taking necessary steps to comply with CIC's order.
However, social media users were not convinced after many noticed that the press release was not signed by any official authority.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
- Access to all paywalled content on site
- Ad-free experience across The Quint
- Early previews of our Special Projects
Published: 29 Oct 2020,11:37 AM IST