Govt officers told not to use pvt e-mails

BIKANER: The Rajasthan government has restricted the use of private e-mail services like Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail for its all departments and state governed establishments with immediate effect.

Chief secretary D B Gupta, in an order (HT has the copy) directed all government officers, departments, PSU’S, boards and corporations to use government e mail system and services. The order also restricts the use of free mail services like google, yahoo, hotmail, outlook and rediff for any official communications.

A Bikaner resident social worker Satyaveer Jain wrote a letter to the government raising the issue of using official e mail services which were developed and maintained by the information and technology departments of state and union government instead of private service providers. Jain also warned the government about misuse of information passed through private service providers.

Replying to Jain’s suggestion on Rajasthan Sampark portal the department assured a detailed circular to be sent to all departments to practice the government e mail services. Department of Information Technology & Communication (DOIT&C) has already developed an e mail infrastructure in RSDC and are providing e mail services to various departments.

According to a Gazette notification issued on February 19, 2015, The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India also made it mandatory for all state government departmentsto use only government e mail services for official government communication.

CS D B Gupta, in his order said that- It is observed that most of the departments, PSUS, Boards of State Government are still using the prohibited free public email services for official communication. This would not only ensure the data privacy and security of government data but al so improve the overall communication efficiency in inter-department communication.

The concerned departments are also asked to use their official email accounts on a regular basis so as to avoid de-activation.

The Rajasthan government has also provided every official user with a free government e mail account on its official email platform “Rajmail”. Even citizens are allowed to create their @rajasthan.in email account by logging in to RAJSSO portal and clicking the application icon.

Departments having their dedicated e-mail domain are told to host their services at DOLT&C Mail Servers in RSDC.