The Tall Claims of Transparency does not look true in the case of Telangana as the state government has concealed at 7129 G.O.s from the Public Domain. The Official Secrets Act introduced by the British has been abolished with the introduction of Right to Information Act on October 12, 2005, but then the state governments continue to have their own secrets.
The government says they are ‘confidential’. Interestingly, the departments headed by Telangana CM KCR and his son, KTR are also concealing several G.O.s. In fact, the General Administration Department headed by none other than Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is leading the lot by not uploading 1,304 GOs.
This was revealed by an RTI query filed by an activist Ganji Srinivasa Rao. The practice of uploading G.O.s on a website began on January 1st, 2008 as per the provisions of the Right to Information Act. Back then as well there are allegations of these confidential G.O.s. Telangana government has set up its own G.O.s website after the state division but is struggling with this issue since then.
Earlier this year, Telangana government decided to shut down the website publishing G.O.s, This was after the state government got baffled over the series of court orders on various issues relating to the government orders. But then Congress leader Dasoju Shravan filed a writ petition in the High Court of Hyderabad demanding the reopening of the website. Subsequently, the website was opened by the end of April. The government, however, is preferring not to publish some GOs to prevent embarrassment to the government in the name of Confidential G.O.s.
