Says, ‘Nodal Officer and his team must own moral responsibility’
Dimapur, April 24 (MExN): The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) today expressed serious concern about the major security breach of data relating to stranded citizens of Nagaland. “The earlier excuse of overloaded website and now this data security breach are the mirror of unpreparedness and inefficiency shown by the state government machinery so far,” said a press statement issued by the Communication Department, NPCC.
The Committee stated that the clarification issued by Principal Director of School Education who is also the Nodal Officer for ‘monitoring & coordination with other states’ to a news portal is “more about shifting blame on those point of contacts such as union leaders in different parts of country tasked with verification process.”
It stated that in the first place, Nodal Officer and his team must own moral responsibility for not applying their minds while handling personal details of stranded people. For verification, they could have simply sent only the details of name, address and phone number given by applicants to respective point of contacts. Moreover, the details sent in MS Excel format should have been in password protected file known only to the point of contact, NPCC pointed out.
“By resorting to sending the entire information which includes Aadhaar and bank account details, the concerned nodal officials have committed serious blunder,” the NPCC alleged while adding that the state government must take cognizance of this major security breach and take action to restore some semblance of order which has so far been missing in its approach to handling the pandemic situation.
Further, the Committee urged the state government to expedite the process of disbursing financial assistance to stranded people while ensuring that those applying fraudulently are strictly penalized. “The political leadership at the helm of government must rise to the occasion and motivate government officials to perform even beyond the call of duty in these extraordinary times,” it added.
