AP Government decides not to post Government Orders online anymore

The AP State Government has decided to not post any official government orders (GOs) online henceforth. Up until recently, all GOs were being uploaded on the Andhra Pradesh Government’s official website https://www.ap.gov.in. 

An order of this new policy was issued by the Additional Secretary to the Andhra Pradesh CM, Revu Mutyala Raju IAS, on Monday 16 August 2021.  The policy now looks to refer to the AP Secretariat Office Manual and the AP Government Business rules before generating GOs offline. 

The order was issued in line with the system prevailing in other states regarding government orders and office memorandums. The Additional Secretary has advised all the departments of the Secretariat to take the necessary actions

While the reason for such a policy is not clearly known, it is said that this move was to keep troublemakers at bay. It was noticed that there were unnecessary filing of pleas in the court leading to deliberate delays in court hearings. 

In recent times, the AP State Government has come under the hammer for uploading blank Government Orders (GOs) on the portal. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had even submitted a memorandum in this regard to the Andhra Pradesh Governor, Biswa Bhusan Harichandran. The party urged that the issuance of the blank GOs was projecting the office of the Governor in a poor light as these orders are issued in the name of the Governor.  

Uploading GOs in the public domain was started during the tenure of ex- Chief Minister, YS Rajasekhara Reddy in the then combined Andhra Pradesh in 2008 and has been continuing ever since.