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RTI: AP yet to do the right thing by P Vasudeva Rao

The Right to Information Act was the great white hope of Indian citizens who are consistently denied rightful information.

Not only does it specify that most information in the public domain would be provided to citizens by right, but it also ensured that failure to do so by the bloated bureaucracy would result in penalties for erring officials.

Trust the government, though, to subvert its own good intentions. The state government has not appointed state information commissioners even eight months after three commissioners retired. The result is that cases before the State Information Commission are just piling up, defeating the purpose of speedy provision of information to the public.

The State Information Commission had about 6,000 plus cases pending when the term of the three information commissioners expired in November 2010, already a staggeringly large number. Since then, the number of pending cases has grown to 8,500 (up to June).

The state government's excuse for not appointing new commissioners then was that the election code of conduct was in force. The results of the elections in various States were announced in May but no appointments have been made yet.

Questioned about the delay, a senior official in the Secretariat maintained that a meeting was supposed to be held at the end of June, but was postponed for some reason. He said the government had received 80 applications.

Convener of the United Forum for RTI Campaign, Mr Ramakrishnam Raju, is scathing about the manner in which the issue is being handled.

“We have given several representations but there is no response. Many Public Information Officers (PIOs) are not giving information in time deliberately as there are no information commissioners. They are not serious because even if there was a complaint against them it will take years for the same to be disposed of,” he said.

PIOs who handle RTI requests in each department have to answer to the SICs if they fail to provide information in the stipulated time or provide inadequate information.

Mr P. Ramprasad of the Andhra Pradesh Samachara Hakkula Vedika has made two representations to Chief Minister, Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, and one to the Governor on the need to appoint the SICs, but got no response.

When he put in an RTI petition seeking to know what progress had been made on his earlier petition about appointment of SICs, he received intimation from the Chief Minister’s Office 15 days ago saying that the government would be appointing the three SICs soon.

“Almost all revenue officers are opposing the Act and the government, too, seems to be watering down the same by resorting to delaying tactics,” Mr Ramprasad maintained.

“Twelve of my cases are held up with the State Information Commissioner. Even if all my cases are solved after new commissioners are appointed, it will be of no use to me because I needed the information at a certain point in time, not years later,” reasoned Mr Ramakrishna, an RTI activist.

He said that the present State Chief Information Commissioner “doesn't have the exact picture of what needs to be done. He is doing his homework now, though he was appointed a year ago. Appointment of new commissioners should be given first priority.”

The State Chief Information Commissioner has urged the government to sanction five commissioners to expedite the disposal of the accumulated cases.

It remains to be seen how soon the government bestirs itself on an issue that has never been popular with government officers or their political masters.

Basic RTI info not updated

Many government departments have failed to update basic information on their websites as required under the Right to Information Act.

The special chief secretary, Ms Minnie Mathew, claims that the offenders cannot be penalised because there is no provision under the law to do so.

“Without the backing of the law, we cannot impose penalties,” she said.

Section 4 (1) (b) of the RTI Act mandates government departments to make available certain information under 17 different categories, including budget allocated to various agencies and manner of execution of subsidy programmes. The information has to be provided either in printed format or on the website.

“We have issued strict orders. Officials at the HOD and Secretariat level are following it. It’s only officials at the divisional and sub-divisional level who are not complying. We have directed collectors to send a list of such defaulters for further action,” Ms Mathew said.

This provision, to provide basic information whether asked for or not, is described as the ‘heart and soul’ of the RTI Act. The state Chief Information Commissioner, Mr Jannat Husain, sent advisories to all departments a month ago to update information displayed under section 4 (1) (a) and 4 (1) (b), but many departments have ignored the advisory.

Andhra Pradesh is represented by an official of the rank of deputy secretary in the task force set up by the central government which is currently looking into measures required to enforce compliance of the information disclosure and the format in which the information could be disclosed.

Except for the State Law and Labour departments, which have updated information in the last one year, all other departments still display the old information. For instance, the website of the Civil Supplies department names Mr Bhanwar Lal as its commissioner, while the General Administration department says Mr T. K. Dewan is chief secretary. The Health and Family Welfare department hasn't bothered to display any information at all.