Dead vice-chairman still alive on Thiruvottiyur Municipality website

G Saravanan:
Chennai, June 6:
While the Tamil Nadu government boasts as best information technology (IT) destination in the country on one side, browsing through the state-maintained websites reveals that many sites (that serve vital government details to whoever access it) has not been updated for almost six months.
There was a classic example to prove the case where the government failed to update its websites in regular basis at Thiruvottiyur Municipality website (http://municipality.tn.gov.in/Tiruvottiyur/who_Deputy.htm), where its vice chairman K Veerasamy was died six months ago, but the site still shows him as alive and serving the people there by holding the post.
But the real story at the municipality circles is something different. After the demise of DMK party leader Veerasamy, who was revered as stalwart even among the opponent party leaders in Thiruvottiyur for the past four decades, the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission conducted bye-election in February this year to fill the ward (32) councilor post that went vacant after his death.
The DMK party in Thiruvottiyur had nominated his son Sathish Kumar for the post and he won the seat with handsome margin. Likewise, another ward councilor V Ramanathan was elected for the vice chairman post held by Veerasamy in the municipality.
“If such government websites, which serve every fundamental information to visitors, did not have proper updates, the whole purpose of giving online information to the public is defeated,” said Sekar, a ward councilor in the municipality.
This is the state of many state-government maintained websites where there were no updates for several months, he added.
When contacted the chairman R Jayaraman of the municipality, he acknowledged that the (municipal) website indeed carrying the wrong information as Veerasamy died some six months ago.
We have informed the government about the developments in the municipality months ago and the administrators of the website should have updated with the new information, Jayaraman added.
Eom.Saravanan