Govt. to go beyond RTI to share information: Manmohan

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Govt. to go beyond RTI to share information: Manmohan
As reported in the Hindu | September 9, 2008

New Delhi (PTI): The UPA government is considering a proposal to go beyond the Right to Information Act (RTI) by posting all but strategic information in the public domain.

While the RTI is a tool for citizens to extract information from the government, the new system would give information without the public asking for it.

"The Central Government is also examining our data-sharing policy to bring all non-strategic information in the public domain," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said inaugurating a national conference on statistics here.

Singh said a proactive policy of disclosure would be in keeping with the spirit of the Right to Information Act.

Under the RTI, dubbed as one of the success stories of the UPA government, a person can seek information after paying a fee and formally applying for it.

"Information collected at huge cost, with the tax payers' money, should be made available to the general public without their having to ask for it. This will improve the quality of the data as it will be subject to informed public scrutiny," he said.

The Hindu News Update Service

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PM asks states to remodel statistical system
as reported in NewsTrack India, New Delhi, Wed, 10 Sep 2008 NI Wire

The Prime Minster of India Dr. Manmohan Singh asked the Planning Commission, Finance Ministry, statistics department and other government departments to set up a new independent data system that evaluates some flagship programmes of the government, particularly in education, health and rural development sectors.

The data system would be based on the data generated by Central as well as State governments and others, said Prime Minister while addressing the Conference of States and Union Territories on Management of Statistics in New Delhi on Tuesday (Sep 9).

PM stressed that why would public go for Right to Information (RTI) Act, when government would disclose all the crucial information in the public domain. ‘In this regard, Centre is considering a proposal to post all but most strategic information in the public domain,’ as he cited.

For this government need more credible, accurate and broad information that cannot be collected without the help of States. “A good statistical system of the government provides the foundation of a good public information infrastructure. Reliable statistics are necessary not only for economic decision making but also for policy making. National statistics need to be supplemented by State level statistics which would allow comparable analysis of economic problems and performance at the level of individual States,” said Manmohan.

“I urge State Governments to put in place an effective arrangement to monitor the collection of state level statistics which would enhance their credibility and reliability,” he added.

Illustrating the importance of more modern system, Dr. Singh said, “Such a system will not only monitor the progress against targets, but also suggest ways and means of improving performance to produce better results.”

“Our Government is firmly committed to strengthening our statistical system and we have taken several steps in this direction. My friends Professor C. Rangarajan and Dr. Suresh Tendulkar have been engaged in this noble exercise for several years. I compliment them for their self-less service to the cause of our Nation,” PM further said.

The Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation G.K. Vasan, who was also present in the conference said, “In the decentralised statistical system, National Statistics in many cases are derived from State level. Therefore as a need for States to have separate department of statistics and also a strong statistical machinery at local levels, thus, Central Government was considering a proposal for States Statistical System through a centrally sponsored scheme in the Eleventh Plan at an estimated cost of Rs.705 crores.”

He urged the states to consider setting up a Statistical Commission to oversee their systems and assist the National Commission in realising common objectives. He also stated that the Union Government had introduced the collection of Statistics Bill, 2007 to strengthen data collection in this country.

Speaking on this occasion, Prof. Suresh Tendulkar, Chairman National Statistical Commission said that the country needs a statistical system that is commensurate with the needs of vibrant democratic society and the fast growing economy in the 21st Century. In this regard, Centre is considering to make a stronger system that would provide all non-strategic information at all level including Panchayati Raj.

PM asks states to remodel statistical system

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A Special Article by Arindam Ghosh-Dastidar (Senior Editor, The Statesman) in thestatesman.net on 21 September 2008:
The Statesman

OUR DATA, THEIR DOMAIN

Non-Strategic Portal An Attempt To Be Wise After The Event

By ARINDAM GHOSH-DASTIDAR

It is an irony of the times that as the national government is going through the motions of wrapping up its tenure, the Prime Minister has offered a remarkably forthright critique of what his scriptwriters have packaged as either a “success story” or a “flagship achievement”. Such effusion of superlatives scarcely conceals shortcomings. And a major disappointment in Dr Manmohan Singh’s reckoning, if his recent address to the state ministers of statistics is any indication, has been the implementation of the Right To Information (RTI) Act. Which explains his urgent desperation to “post all but strategic information on the public domain”. However indirect, it is a belated indictment of the system as it operates and not merely in West Bengal when the Prime Minister asserts that “information collected at huge cost and with the tax-payers’ money should be made available to the general public without their asking for it”.

The subtext of that statement must be that for all the pledges made in 2005 to ensure transparency in the government’s functioning, the RTI Act has failed the people as the government, to summon the Prime Minister’s words, “has been a poor presenter of information”. On the contrary, the parliamentary legislation has only reinforced the tendency to keep matters under the hat. Not that the system now being envisaged by the Prime Minister will readily inspire optimism. It is all very well to contemplate dissemination of information “without the public asking for it”. Misgivings that what eventually gets to be disseminated will be on the government’s terms are not wholly unfounded. And this may be fairly in accord with the system as initially envisaged in West Bengal, whose Chief Minister would rather that all information is disseminated by the information department ~ under his belt since 1977. The implementation of the RTI Act confirms that it is the ruling class itself that has set its face against this embodiment of the people’s will.

Yet in all fairness, it isn’t the government that is singularly responsible for the Act being reduced to a fizzle. It is a measure of the short shrift given to this watershed legislation ~ a reflection of the citizen’s right to know ~ that the legislature has on occasion tried to play footsie with the executive. It bears recall that as recently as May this year, the august envoys to the Lok Sabha sought to make a travesty of the Act. A parliamentary committee, ever so anxious as all such committees are to protect brother MPs across party lines, had issued a fatwa to the effect that applicants under the RTI Act will have to furnish reasons for seeking information pertaining to Parliament, pre-eminently “parliamentary documents”. The spin-doctors are distinctly intent on interpreting the RTI Act on their terms, in effect to provide information and access to documents in their lights. This isn’t what the legislation seeks to achieve; there is no provision in the Act that calls for the spelling out of the reasons.

The Prime Minister must be acutely aware that just as governments at the Centre and in the states have overwhelmingly been loath to part with information, transparency ~ the operative part of the Act ~ is clearly subject to the interpretation of the MPs, whose own standards of probity are scarcely above board. Still more repugnant is the committee’s suggestion that the Act ought to be amended in the case of citizens’ questions that come under the parliamentary ambit. The legislators’ anxiety to tailor their own legislation after three years would have been ridiculously laughable were it not for the grave implications. The deadline for parting with information, as prescribed in the Act, has been reduced to irrelevance. The Speaker has been given the right to transfer requests for information to the privileges committee. Which, in effect, rules out a review by the Chief Information Commissioner ~ a statutory appointment and no less. In a word, the parliamentary committee is keen on establishing a cordon sanitaire that will shield the elected representatives from an electorate wanting to know. A more calculated mockery of a parliamentary Act ~ a reflection of the will of the people ~ would be difficult to conceive of.

Long before the Prime Minister bared his angst on 9 September, the CIC ought to have called the bluff of the 500-odd members if only to preserve the dignity of his office ~ sworn on oath ~ from a thoroughly non-performing Lok Sabha, even given to chicanery as on 22 July. It redounds to the commission’s credit though that it has directed all political parties to disclose their income-tax returns in response to a request filed by the Association for Democratic Rights. This should ensure scrutiny into the funding of political parties, a contentious issue before every election. While the parties have been put in their place, Parliament may turn out to be a harder nut to crack. Three years after passing the legislation, the Lok Sabha has tried to devise manipulative procedures, indeed to distort the fundamental tenets of democratic functioning.

A born-again Prime Minister may have spoken his mind; but the equally born-again Speaker has been muted in his response to the shenanigans of the MPs. Neither can scarcely shirk responsibility. A non-strategic public information domain may be a well-intentioned afterthought, but it is an attempt to be wise after the event. It is an open question whether the portal will materialise between now and the elections; at any rate, it will be a readymade responsibility of the next government.

Concordant with the flavour of the season, the first webpage could well dwell on the tripartite agreement between Tata Motors, the government and the facilitator called the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation. With respect to the Bench, that non-strategic piece of information will translate the express purpose of “transparency” into tangible terms. The trust deficit, manifest over the past three years, must be wiped out; the RTI Act leaves no scope for what they call “limited clarity”. The Prime Minister may have paved the way with perfect intent, but comes through utterly confused over the issue of transparency.

The writer is Senior Editor, The Statesman