[ganpat1956]

Ahmedabad, April 7: All praises for the Gujarat State Information Commission (GSIC), Arvind Kejriwal, noted Right To Information Act(RTI) activist and Ramon Magsaysay 2006 award winner, said that 70 per cent of RTI applications are filed by government employees _mostly regarding promotion or dues_ which illustrates that the government is the worst employer in the country.

Stressing on making RTI more accessible to people in the next phase, Kejriwal said that in Bihar people can file petitions under the RTI Act on telephone, fee for which is later added to the phone bill. While the Central Information Commission is struggling hard to live upto the expectations of people, GSIC tops the performance score, he said.

According to Kejriwal, GSIC leads the performance chart among other state information commissions.


Kejriwal, who was in city on Saturday, told Newsline that he also met with the State Information Commissioner and State Chief Secretary.

“While the State Chief Secretary was lukewarm in his response, State Information Commissioner R N Das appeared very proactive,” Kejriwal said.

“He has also passed some very good orders, which is not so easy in other states,” he added. “Das had told us that so far, he has not come across any kind of pressure or interference from any department or political party as far as the functioning of the commission is concerned,” Kejriwal said. “There might have been cases of some orders which were not quite satisfactory for petitioner,” he said, adding that in such a situation, the civil society need to ‘constructively engage itself with the SIC to further the right use of the act.’ “With a proactive person like Das as SIC, I don’t think there there should be any problem in dialogue here,” he added.

Elaborating on the act’s use, Kejriwal said that 70 per cent of petitions are still being filed by the government employees.

“Mostly such petitions are filed regarding their promotion or dues, which only shows that the government is the worst employer in the country,” Kejriwal added.

Citing the ‘popular’ Bihar experiment, he said that one needs to call up the given number, seek the requisite information and give their name and address.

The query is recorded in the call centre set up by the state government and serves as a petition. Fees for the petition is added to the phone bill, he said. “Now, we are advocating such a facility which would make the act accessible to illiterates as well,” he added.

Gujarat information panel scores well above Central one: Kejriwal