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The e-Gazette Debate..Views and Opinions

P.S: Since Naavi raised this issue on the website and in some other e-groups, several views and opinions have been received. These have been consolidated here. Since these views were given in different fora, the names of the persons have been withheld and only opinions are expressed. Once the consent from the writers is obtained, the details may be added.

Naavi

January 23, 2009

Date Person View
January 19 R-1 Unfortunately, the body of public opinion is steadfastly turned to an impression that the expression "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is equivalent to considering that cash is the only compensation of value for every single little thing. It completely ignores one fact, that we, as citizens of India, already pay for everything twice over, regardless of whether there is a bill for it or not.

How so? The parallel economy is generally suggested to be equal to the registered one, resulting in everyone paying twice over for the same goods and services, including those supposed to be part and parcel of deliverance of good governance.

The result of this is a firm impression amongst ordinary people, for whom the writings of economists are cloaked in mystery (which they are, even to educated people, for the greater part), that something for which money is not paid is 'free'.

The counterpart of this, an impression deeply encouraged ever since the current wave of 'liberalisation' began in the early 90s, and which has been drummed in continually by successive governments, is that government services should 'pay for themselves' by billing citizens.

In the present example, the publication of the Gazette, without which the implementation of governance is impossible (can the concerned Ministry be unaware of this simple fact?) is sought to be turned into a 'revenue' item.
While it can be no-one's case that the document in its successive editions be delivered for free in paper form to every house and home in India, at least it should be accessible for free, when the technology permits. The utter and shameful failure of the government to provide free public libraries in every town and village in sixty years of independence and democracy can in some small part be compensated by at least making essential documentation accessible electronically. Indeed, the document should be publicly available in W3C compliant formats, as committed by the Government publicly whilst signing the relevant UN charter a couple of years back.

Arun Mehta has called separately for an RTI application to be filed, demanding to know the action taken by the government since signing the declaration.

I think that the move to begin an eGazette on billing basis is retrograde and deserving of judicial action and universal condemnation by every concerned citizen, never mind simply ascertaining the mere fact that they seek to charge for it.
 

  R-2 On Monday 19 Jan 2009, ......wrote:

What licence is the gazette published under? If there's no copyrightand no copy restrictions, it's feasible for an individual (or an organisation) to keep purchasing the gazette and put it up for download at no charge on his/her web site.
  R-3 Chances are that's at least a copyright violation. If the government chooses to prosecute it - which they probably will if they see this as a revenue stream for them.
  Naavi We are discussing contents in http://egazette.nic.in/

ITA 2000 had already enabled the issue of gazettes in electronic form.

The website however does not represent the powers under Section 8 of ITA 2000 but is only publication of e-copies of paper based gazette notifications.
  R-2 I'm referring to the licence of the paper copies, since the same licence will apply to the soft copies. Would GoI prevent, e.g. photocopying of the paper copies and redistribution? Or is that encouraged? If it is forbidden, can they be sure the paper gazettes don't get photocopied and redistributed in government offices all over the country? Will they prosecute their own employees if they copy and share the gazette?

Should we take this to the list?
  R-1 "If the latter, then redistribution is not a problem. "


I think it has been clearly pointed out that the gazette contents are public notices, for which the government can hardly argue for, or get away with, restricting its free distribution. It is therefore axiomatic that the contents should be available freely online. From there, citizens can take whatever they want at whatever cost they are locally willing to spend: ie if they own their own printers, it is the cost of the printing plus some tiny amount for maintenance of the computer etc; else, it is the service fee paid to the local agency.

Equally, other webmasters should be allowed to make the contents available within their own online aggregations or commentaries (as long as they don't simply make a copy of the gazette blindly, if we assume it is arguably copyrightable, and citizens are free to merely view it whenever they need without printing it unless necessary, and such webmasters are free to charge for such analyses and commentaries, if they think it serves a market need, but
obviously not for the notifications themselves).

In such a scenario, the government is also free to charge for access to its own gazette website, if that is what it is legally compelled to do (which I doubt is a possibility). However, the relevant notifications must be continue to be made freely available from individual ministry websites, as they presumably are now.

If this is not the intention, then what specific action is needed to make the government clarify the situation?
  R-5 Other side of the Coin:

1. Nothing should be provided free of cost!! It e-Gazzets costs Govt Rs. 5 crores; they should at least recover Rs. 7 Crores so that they can provide things in better ways with more Value Added Services.

2. What Tax we pay is very negligible amount compared with the total expense spent for running Govt.

3. We pay Tax to help Govt to run in normal way; but we DO NOT own the Govt.

4. If some one purchases Rajdhani Ticket from Mumbai to Delhi does not mean that passengers own's Railways.

5. Assume Govt looses like this Rs. 5-10 Crores in each & every corner; what will happen after few years.
  Naavi Dear mr ..

I appreciate your point of view that Government may think of generating a revenue out of the services it renders.

However making copies of Gazette notifications available to the public is not a value added service. A citizen is entitled to know what rules the Government imposes on him and the Gazette notifications contain these rules.

Secondly, we were paying taxes even before the Government adopted e-Governance measures. There are several services of the Government which have been privatized (eg Infrastructure services such as road building etc), Several services have been abandoned (eg: Security of private industry).

Also e-Governance is expected to reduce the cost of Governance, At least it should bear the cost of inflation in Government expenditure.

In practice however, we are ending up making more and more tax payments to get less and less of Government services.

I therefore consider that the Government should not use the e-gazette publication as a profit making opportunity. If necessary, they can create value added information services from out of the basic information available in Government notifications.

The above argument is applicable for several other Government services including Court judgments which should be made available to the public free of costs.

For a Government which can write of Rs 60000 crores of agricultural debts to gain votes unmindful of the huge inflation effect of the decision, losing Rs 5 crores per annum for providing e-gazettes should not be an issue. If the Government fully implements its own provision under Section 8 of ITA 2000, then they can stop publishing the print version of gazettes and issue only digitally signed e-gazette notifications. This may reduce the cost of administration rather than scanning all notifications and putting them up in PDF format on the website enriching Adobe in the process.

Naavi
  R-6 Hello, 
I have been a member of cyberlaw4india for I believe 2+ years. I live and I am from the United States. I have to ask, in respects to the E-Gazzette, I am seeking further understanding regarding this issue. 
1. Is the E-Gazzette a publication of laws for cyber activities?
2. Does India have a public library system, or any place where these publications can be accessed for the public?
3. Why is there a per annum cost for the E-Gazzette?
 
  Naavi Dear Friend,

We are discussing the contents of http://egazette.nic.in

This is a website maintained by the Government of India.

In October 2000, India passed Information Technology Act 2000 (ITA 2000) and section 8 of this act enabled Government to publish gazette notifications in electronic form. However it was as recently as May 2008 when the Government opened the above website which is being maintained by the same department which was earlier publishing printed form of gazette notifications.

The Government at this point of time is not using the powers of section 8 of ITA 2000 which permits them to stop issuing paper based notifications and issue only digitally signed e-gazette notifications and maintain an e-archive.

What they are now doing is issue the gazette notification in print with ordinary signatures, scan them into a PDF document and make it available for download.

The Government has posted the notifications in PDF format and is charging per document fee for downloading.

It contains notifications for both Cyber and non Cyber activities of the Government.

There is no public library of these notifications except normal libraries who may purchase and make it available to members along with other books.

The reason for charging a fee is basically to recover costs or perhaps make profit.

This raises several issues both legal and ethical. Views of experts are welcome.

There is also a discussion on "Whether the Government can charge a fee as licensing fee"? Views on this is also welcome.

Naavi
  R-6 Thank you for your response. I am not a citizen of your government, and I hoped not to attempt to make comparisons between the United States system of governance and taxation. It is a common mistake that many Americans commit, and that type of arrogance is not what I want to reflect in my post. However, in providing this disclaimer, perhaps we can commit to an inquiry into other means and alternatives, that are of no cost, that could be used to obtain the same type of information? If no such other means exist, does this possibly leave the citizenry with the possibility of being blind sided, perhaps committing a crime that otherwise may not have been committed, had they known that such act was illegal?

If the publication is not the sole source of new laws, but is the sole source of knowing the comings and goings of the Indian government, perhaps now would be the time for me to point out an example here in the United States, where the very activities of the government are published and available, thanks to private interaction.

http://www.cspan.org/ is the website to a television channel known as C-Span. The website is more recent than the actual broadcast service that was offered by our cable television providers over 30 years ago. The purpose was to provide transparency to the American public of the inner workings if the US Congress. The channel provides video content of congressional sessions and hearings, and this content is also freely available through the website I have provided. There is also an extensive set of links which link to various online websites, some non-profit, some are from the government, which present passed laws that would be then added, for example, to the US Code. Laws available in PDF, and for free.

These are efforts that have taken place, not because the cable television provider is benevolent, but rather, it serves their interest, in which, by looking favorably to the public, they can gain profit. 

I know it is not my place to suggest this, but can media outlets in India, or television content providers, unite, and create a similar service, thereby, reducing government overhead cost for the publication of the E-Gazzete an transferring it to private organizations, who would of course not want to charge a fee. Please let me know your opinions, and thank you.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

  R-7 Thank you for launching an interesting debate.

Why was gazette printed in the first place? To keep people informed of what government was doing, provide authentic versions of government notification of Acts, Rules and Regulations,

and also notify transfer and posting of officers. As on date, there is no justification whatsoever, in my view, in coming out with a print edition of gazette. Let e-gazette take its place.

(One day it certainly will.)

>Government may think of generating a revenue out of the services it renders.

> Not necessary though. In government, revenue and expenditure are two different streams.

 >Also e-Governance is expected to reduce the cost of Governance

> It may be true in certain specific cases, but speaking generally it is not true so far. Reason? Both p-government (p for paper) and e-government survive together as a result of which direct administrative costs in fact have gone up, and not down.  

>What Tax we pay is very negligible amount compared with the total 
expense spent for running Govt.

> Direct Taxes-Yes; Indirect Taxes-No.  

>We pay Tax to help Govt to run in normal way; but we DO NOT own 
the Govt

>WE AS PEOPLE CERTAINLY OWN THE GOVERNMENT. Remember, India is a sovereign democratic republic.And the sovereignty vests in the people of India.(Incidentally, the Republic Day is just a week away!).  

 

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