The Government has decided to conduct a study on the implementation of the Right to Information Act to know the cost to the government in providing information to citizens under the UPA’s showpiece initiative and whether it has helped improve its “public perception about the extent of reduction in corruption”.
As per the RTI Act of 2005, only Rs. 10 fee is required to seek information from any public authority, but various government officials have complained of the huge cost they have to bear to divert resources and effort to answer RTI pleas.
The government has earlier got a study conducted from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in 2009 on the key issues and constraints in implementing the RTI Act. But, for the first time, the government is attempting to “calculate the cost to government in providing the formation under RTI”, as per the scope of work of the new study for which the Department of Personnel and Training has invited bids on 4th January. “To further strengthen the RTI regime, it has been decided to do a 360-degree study of the implementation of the RTI Act. The study will cover both states and the central government, across various sectors, and will cover public authorities at centre, state, district and panchayat level,” the bid document says. The scope of the study also involves assessing public perception about the extent of reduction in corruption. “Since the implementation of the Act there has been a significant and perceptible change in the level of transparency in the working of the governments at the Centre, state and the sub-state level,” the bid document claims. The scope of the study includes a study of trends in filing of RTI applications or appeals across the country. The government also wants an institution or organisation to study the use of the RTI Act by different types of applicants – in cases where applicant type is identifiable from the application. The study will assess the type of information sought and its classification into “personal information” sought by employees, procurement-related information sought “without any apparent objective/purpose” and general information sought without specificity across sections.
“The implementation of the provisions of the Act has to be studied from the perspective of both the demand and supply side. The approach to achieving the above is viewing RTI applications and their responses from the information seekers’ and providers’ angle,” the bid document says. The study will hence, determine the level of satisfaction among the people with functioning of the Act and the experience of public authorities at different levels in dealing with RTI applications and appeals, the document has mentioned.
[Extracts from ET dated 7-1-2013]
Good News for Mumbai RTI Applicants:
The office of the State Chief Information Commissioner will go paperless in less than a month. “If all goes well then our office will be paperless and we have developed a software for the purpose,” State Chief Information Commissioner, Ratnakar Gaikwad said.
Soon after his appointment in June, when Gaikwad visited the office of the Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi, he was surprised to see that there were no files on his table.
“I studied his working pattern and felt that it was possible to introduce a paperless office in Mumbai too,” he added. Gaikwad, who has set a target of disposing of 25 complaints/appeals daily, said no purpose will be served if information is not provided to an applicant as early as possible. “I am sure that we will be able to clear all the 2,098 appeals by March, 2013. Once the backlog is cleared, we will clear the appeals within 15days,” he said.
