The Central Information Commission (CIC) which regularly asks government offices to promote transparency by placing information on their web portals is struggling to update its own website and has put the onus of poor maintenance on Data Entry Operators - contractual employees at a very basic level.

The commission in its recent meeting threatened to deduct salaries of data entry operators if decisions are not uploaded immediately after pronouncement.

The web site of the panel, which is mandated under the RTI Act to promote and propagate transparency across government offices and other public authorities, seems to be in poor shape with no details of complaints or appeals received by it since May 2012.

The information about pending cases in each registry including that of Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra was last updated on August 31, 2012.

Moreover, the Commission itself is concerned about decisions not being uploaded on the web site on timely basis.

The uploading of decisions and other information is done by the registry of each Information Commissioner with the help of the IT department.

The issue of poor functioning of web site was brought to the notice of Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra but the panel in its meeting chose to blame contractual employees for the problems.

The minutes of meeting dated January 8, attended by five out of eight Information Commissioners, reveal that concerns were raised about the functioning of the web site as orders were not uploaded on it regularly.

"The Commission directed that each registry would ensure uploading decisions after its pronouncement immediately on website. Any registry which fails to comply with this exercise without any reasonable cause, the concerned Data Entry Operator in the registry would not be paid salary for that month," the panel decided.