Be it the metro fare between two stations, the list of ATMs in a particular taluk, or government school teachers working in a particular school, the state government has now made all the information available on the Mahiti Kanaja portal.
Any person can log into the portal — mahitikanaja.karnataka.gov.in — and access information pertaining to 160 government services across 50 departments.
While the portal was initially launched in 2020 during the previous BS Yediyurappa administration with ten departments and 30 services, the e-Governance department has since expanded it to 160 services.
Relaunching the public information disclosure platform to mark sixteen years of implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act on Tuesday, Additional Chief Secretary (e-Governance) Rajeev Chawla said the aim was to further expand it to 500 services by March 2022.
There are several government departments that are not covered by Mahiti Kanaja at present.
Since the information offered on the portal is akin to what is offered under the RTI Act, the department wants to ensure the privacy of the user. Hence, it will not require any log-in information and the department will not record the IP address, according to Chawla.
On the other hand, the portal offers specific information about various government schemes. As some of this information pertains to beneficiaries of government schemes, the government will block certain part of the beneficiary identity in the interest of their privacy, Chawla added.
The department is, at present, in the process of roping in more departments, especially key ones such as the BBMP and Public Works. In order to ensure that a wide array of information relevant to the public is accessible on the portal, the department has also roped in about 40 civil society groups and is holding monthly consultations with them.
Over the past year, there have been 2.06 lakh hits on the portal.
Further, over the next two months, the department will also come out with a mobile app for Mahiti Kanaja. However, the mobile app will have fewer services with direct public interface such as the pension, for instance, Chawla said.
Ultimately, the government's plan is to reduce the number of RTI applications that citizens will need to file to get information, the official said.
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