Access to Government Information

From: Access to government information in India in the digital environment by Dr. Paramjeet K. Walia, retrieved on 10/30/10 at http://elearning.emporia.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_30019_1%26url%3D

India's Government is established similarly to ours in the US. The Indian Goverment (the Central Government) has three main government bodies: Legislative, Executive and Judiciary. In addition, the main positions under direct supervision of the President are: Attorney General of India, Controller and Auditor General of India, Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities, Commissioner
for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Election Commission and Union Public Service Commission.

The Government in India plays a vital role in the countries dissemination of information and full control over official Government documents. This article cites the major government documents, each of which plays a critical role in India's government, to be:
Administrative Reports
Census Publications
Commission and Committee Reports
Government Notifications
Plan Documents
Research Reports
Records (National Archives of India)
Statistical Documents

The article goes on to state that "there are large number of judicial and legislative information
in the form of legal documents which includes Bill, Acts, Laws, Codes etc., Laws
Reports Digest, Rules and Regulations, Publications of the Parliament such as
Parliamentary Debates of the Upper House and Lower House of the Parliament, and
Reports of various Parliamentary Committees."

The article continues on to discuss the importance of the National Information Center (NIC) to India's information technology support and the National Portal of India which helps to link government documents to various web-sites. Statistics are given on type/number of documents accessible. It also includes a helpful chart on documents accessible through individual states.

According to the GOI Directory there are 5149 government websites in India.