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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Special drive to clear RTI backlog

Special drive to clear RTI backlog

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published Published on Jan 1, 2012   modified Modified on Jan 1, 2012

-The Times of India

 

Work at the offices of information commissioners across the state has slowed down due to staff shortage, resulting in a pile of 19,000 pending RTI appeals. Of the 144 posts sanctioned by the state for the eight benches of state information commissioners, including the chief, 50 have not been filled. Apart from pending appeals, there are 3,447 complaints that need to be addressed.

RTI activist Mohammed Afzal said the situation is far worse as the state is yet to designrecruitment rules for appointing people to the commissions.

To speed up the disposal of the pending cases, acting chief state information commissioner Vijay Kuvalekar, who is also the state information commissioner for Pune, will hold a mass disposal drive in Mumbai, bringing together information seekers, public information officers and first appellate authorities of various public bodies to settle differences. Only matters that have hit a roadblock will be heard by him, he said.

The special drive will be held from January 3-6 at Podar Medical College, Worli.

"It isn't compulsory to take part in this drive. This is just a way to clear the backlog, which tends to postpone hearing of fresh appeals, delaying the entire process of giving information. The idea is to give information within four months of the appeal being filed," Kuvalekar said at a media briefing on Friday. Currently, the wait to settle the second appeal in Maharshtra is running close to 18 months.

Close to 600 appeals selected chronologically from 2008 to March 2011 will be taken up in the special drive. "We will merely supervise the process; neither will we intervene, nor will we participate," clarified Kuvalekar.

The drive which Kuvalekar has been regularly holding to reduce the pending appeals, has attracted the attention of several other states including Gujarat and Haryana, two states which sent their respective information commissioners to understand its workings.

The staff shortage at the state information commissions is such that three of the five information commissioners in the state currently hold additional charge, forcing them to look at more than one zone.

Even stenographers, who type out orders after cases are disposed of, are few in number. "We also need more positions created for stenographers. I cleared 150 appeals in October and November, but the orders of close to 60 are pending because there aren't enough stenographers," said Kuvalekar.


The Times of India, 31 December, 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Special-drive-to-clear-RTI-backlog/articleshow/11309645.cms


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