UT to soon have Instagram account

Amarjot Kaur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 29

After Facebook and Twitter, the UT Administration is all set to have an account on Instagram to make itself more accessible to people.

Rajiv Tewari, Director, Public Relations, UT, today confirmed that the department would soon have an account on Instagram. “We want to reach out to people, especially during the pandemic. So, our department is planning to come up with an Instagram account,” he said.

Till now, the Department of Cultural Affairs, UT, is the only one to have an account on Instagram as ‘Chandigarh Administration DCA’ with 68 followers and 24 posts.

The Administration’s page, ‘Chandigarh Administration’, had 669 followers and 634 likes till 6 pm on Tuesday. In fact, the UT’s Facebook account has not been updated since March 2018. Its Twitter handle @ChandigarhAdmin has only one tweet dated March 24, 2018, where it has a total of 2,532 followers.

The UT’s Department of Public Relations took to social media platforms nearly a month and a half ago, but it has still not been able to strike a connection with the city’s netizens. The department has 172 followers on Facebook, while it has 12 followers on Twitter.

FOSWAC chairman Baljinder Singh Bittu said, “All government orders and guidelines should be posted on the social media and department websites, especially at the time of the pandemic, but the UT isn’t doing that. Even some of the websites of its departments’ aren’t updated.”

He said the UT’s website listed landline numbers and not mobile numbers of officials. “No one picks up landline numbers when you call and there’s no option to message people either,” he said.

UT Adviser Manoj Parida’s personal Twitter handle had become the city netizens one-stop redressal point, but he too went offline following controversy over his tweets. When asked to comment on the UT’s presence on the social media, he said, “Office circulars can’t be as interesting as messages in simple English. I attend personal queries and office orders are universal declarations and take time to give effect.” He said, “I can take instant decisions as Adviser, so my social media presence could be more than the official one. Plus, it’s thrilling to criticise one man than abusing the whole government or faceless administration.”

Despite repeated attempts, Nazuk Kumar, Director of the IT Department, UT, did not comment on the city’s social media presence.