Successive State Governments focused on boosting tourism and ‘religious tourism’ in Uttarakhand where multitudes from across India and abroad are undertaking the Char Dham Yatra currently underway. Especially after the June 2013 disaster, the authorities have used various means to revive and optimise tourism by convincing potential tourists of a secure and convenient experience in Uttarakhand.
Among prominent developments, officials point out that important information and services are now being provided online for both the resident population and visitors arriving in Uttarakhand. However, official claims appear weak considering the outdated information on the Char Dham Yatra displayed prominently on the State Government’s website.
The home page of the State Government website uk.gov.in has various features including a slideshow of photographs and links to various welfare programmes and services of the Central and State governments. One of these slides displayed declares “Uttarakhand welcomes you to Chardham Yatra 2015 the religious retreat in the Himalayas…”. Clicking on this link takes one to a page of the official website of Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board (UTDB) uttarakhandtourism.gov.in – which displays “Opening Dates of Char Dham Temples during 2015 with Status” presenting the route map, opening dates and the do’s and don’ts.
Browsing the website, one of the tab which attracts attention is ‘Sight Seen’ which may or may not be considered a spelling mistake. Similarly, following other links one can reach the ‘Press release’ section where the last upload displayed is dated May 29, 2013. Another section- ‘Market research and statistics’ appears to have been last updated in 2014.
Further, an observant visitor to the website uk.gov.in may notice something odd in another slideshow link to the Government’s Samadhan public grievance redressal system. This banner link displays a photograph of the secretariat building in Dehradun and below it, the photograph of a woman’s hand dropping a letter which appears to have a British postage stamp with Queen Elizabeth’s picture on it.
The type of stamp cannot be ascertained for sure by a casual visitor to the site but it does appear as if the person concerned did not find it odd to use what appears to be a British photograph to publicise a feature of Uttarakhand. It is pertinent to mention here that the official websites cited here also have latest information on various aspects and it is the outdated links which lead to old pages.
At a time when the utilisation of internet is being developed to achieve digital progress in the nation, the negligence resulting in links leading to old information on a Government website are likely to affect the perception regarding reliability of information presented by the authorities in the public domain.