Connect to people through Facebook: Khandu to officials

From Our Correspondent

Itagar, June 22: Aruchal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu has asked government departments in the state to open dedicated pages on Facebook for officials to connect better with the people. He advocated the use of social media while kick-starting a special training programme here on Wednesday organised by the Department of IT and Communications in association with Facebook. “Government machineries need to be educated with variety of tools that makes communication easy,” Khandu said, noting that despite high online data consumption in the state, government departments have not utilised social media platforms to improve governce.

“I believe 90% of our urban citizens are on Facebook and can avail information on the programmes, policies and schemes offered by the government through its departments on Facebook far better than through meetings, semirs workshops or the traditiol media,” he said.

Giving an insight into Facebook and its tools, Nitin Saluja, Policy Program Mager of Facebook’s India and South Asia operations, said it has been the social media site’s mission to make the world more open and connected by providing a platform for direct interactions between governments and its citizens.

He elaborated that success on Facebook means posting contents that are interesting, useful and engaging and doing it on regular basis by way of two-way conversations. Saluja pointed that Facebook can also be an effective channel to share preparedness tips and keep citizens informed with real-time, location-specific information in case of an emergency.

“How people consume information is constantly evolving, and for governments to be successful, they will need to continuously engage with their followers to understand what types of content resote the most,” he said.

Khandu was optimistic that the training will empower and eble departments to leverage their presence on Facebook and meet organisatiol objectives.

The technical session dwelt on several issues confronting users of social media such as fake accounts, fake profiles, trolls, abusive language, spam, and cyber crime.

Facebook officials would be providing similar training to businessmen, upcoming entrepreneurs, start-ups, and unemployed youths on using Facebook to grow their businesses and police officials to deal with cyber-crimes, etc.

The training session was also attended by Deputy Chief Minister Chow Mein, State Council for IT and e-Governce Chairman Gabriel D Wangsu, Chief Secretary Shakuntala D Gamlin and Rajat Arora of Facebook India and South Asia, an official report informed here today.