No RTI plea, not for years at least

[karira]

As reported by Narendra Kaushik in sakaaltimes.com on 7 July 2008:
http://us.mc458.mail.yahoo.com/mc/sh...HHfYAzvLXsEBys,

No RTI plea, not for years at least

In case you have been denied information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act and are planning to file a complaint in the Maharashtra state information commission (MSIC), think again.

There is a possibility that you may have to wait several years to have your complaint heard. The state info panel after all has a backlog of 15,000 complaints to clear before it can take up for yours.

“We have a backlog of 15,000,” admits Ramanand Tiwari, one of the six information commissioners in the MSIC.

The backlog is more than double the number of pending cases in the central information commission (over 7,200).

Ask Tiwari why and he replies that the government appointed five commissioners just recently. In other words, the MSIC worked with just chief information commissioner Suresh V Shastri for long.

The Centre is aware of the situation in the MSIC and keen to know why it is so bad.

A centrally-sponsored survey by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) is going to focus on five states, including Maharashtra.

The survey, to be completed by this November, will find out why the states have failed to deliver under RTI. “The survey will cover below poverty line as well as above poverty line classes,” says Satyanand Mishra, Secretary, Department of Personnel & Training.

Mishra said the public information officers and information officers in the states were unable to deliver. He also said some states were unable to run awareness campaigns on RTI.

Besides the PwC survey, RTI activists like Aruna Roy and Shekhar Singh are doing their own survey in 11 states and expect to complete it by December 31. “We’ll cover 10,000 RTI applicants, information commissions, legislatures and high courts,” says Singh.

But Arvind Kejriwal, who has been fighting for greater transparency in governance, holds the state information commissioners responsible for the backlog. He told Sakaal Times that they encouraged pendency by not invoking the ‘penalty clause’ against PIOs who denied information. “In Arunachal Pradesh, there is no pendency because the commission there has penalised PIOs in 42 of 62 cases heard till now,” Kejriwal says. One look at Uttar Pradesh and you will know why the RTI Act is not having its desired effect in the country. Magsaysay award winner RTI activist Sandeep Pandey claims it’s difficult to get information from the Uttar Pradesh State Information Commission (UPSIC).

Forget about getting information about Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party government, the UPSIC does not even provide information about its own budget and expenditure.

Recently, when an RTI activist from Noida, Lokesh Batra, wanted information on UPSIC’s yearly budget and expenditure since inception, information officer Mata Prasad said it was ‘not possible to give information’. To another question posed by Batra, the PIO said information can not be collected due to ‘acute paucity’ of staff.

Apparently, RTI activists in UP are up in arms against the RTI regime. “We’re starting a campaign against UPSIC,” claims Pandey. Cases in the UP SIC drag on for several hearings and information officers engage lawyers on government expenses to justify the denial of information.

When it comes to the poor, the reach of the RTI is almost negligible. A recent survey among over 22,000 Below Poverty Line (BPL) households by Transparency International shows that in all states except Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, less than one per cent of the households resorted to RTI last year.

In Maharashtra, the number of BPL households which invoked RTI last years to know about basic and need-based services, was only a meager 0.1 per cent.

[Dr.R.K.D.Goel]

8.07.2008
The Stae Chief Information Commissioners should impose the penalty on errant PIOs / AAs and Public Authorities those intentionaly delay giving informations to RTI applicants. When the PIOs will be penalised it will send a chilling action on other PIOs to give timely and correct informations to an RTI applicant. This will reduce the appeals to SCICs.
Dr.R.K.D.Goel Vadodara.