State Level Convention On Implementation of RTI Act in Orissa -Issues and Concerns*

Venue- Red Cross Bhawan, Bhubaneswar, Date- 10th and 11th December'08

Dear friends

As you know, as elsewhere more than three years have elapsed since
implementation of RTI Act in our state. To operationalise the Act, the
State Govt. took a number of steps like framing Orissa RTI Rules and
Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules, designating of PIOs
and APIOs in the offices of various Public Authorities, constitution
of State Information Commission, and issue of Operational Guidelines
for implementation of the Act in the state.

Besides the State Information Commission has already completed 3 years of its functioning with effect from its inception on 20th November 2005.
During the last 3 years of implementation of RTI Act in the state, the
common citizens and as well activists have experienced very many
vexatious problems while trying to use the Act to access information
and thereby improve the system of governance. Specifically speaking, a
large cross section of citizens have already been fed up with messy
and poor state of administrative arrangements, which stand as a
formidable obstacle to the effective implementation of the Act in the
state. As is well known, the major problems that discourage the
citizens from using the Act are the compulsory use of a lengthy
application form along with the need for attaching a copy of the
voter's card or passport, citizen-unfriendly modes of payment such as
treasury challan and court fee stamps, haphazard implementation of suo
moto disclosures under Section 4 of the Act, non-availability of
register in any office for the inspecting citizens under Section 4,
Commission's persistent refusal to entertain citizens' complaints made
under Section 18 Neither the Government nor the Commission have ever
in course of their awareness programmes educated the public about
their duty to lodge any complaint against the Commissioners and the
power of the Governor under Section 17 of the Act to suspend or
dismiss such Commissioner from their office based upon such complaint.
As a result of all this the historic RTI Act is in the process of a
slow demise in the State of Orissa.

In the context of the highly dismal scenario of RTI in Orissa as above
mentioned, a state level convention is being organized to debate and
discuss the host of tangled issues relating to tardy implementation of
the Act in the State and devise a collective action plan to remedy
them. RTI Activists, NGO functionaries, Journalists, advocates,
scholars, senior citizens, academicians, representatives of INGOs and
aggrieved and interested citizens are being invited to participate and
deliberate in the convention.

We invite you to step in and share your ideas and suggestions with the
participants. A line in reply shall be highly appreciated.

Thanking you
Yours sincerely

Contact Person- Pradeep Pradhan, M-99378-four three four eight two

* AS appeared in State Convention on RTI - OREGS Watch | Google Groups

Similar Threads which you may be interested into: