The Central information Commissioner (CIC) has urged the Prime Minister Office (PMO) and other Ministries to be “proactive” in replying to the RTI queries seeking travel details of the Union Ministers.
In its recent report, the CIC panel observed that most of the Ministries have been “below par” in providing details of domestic and foreign visits of the Union Ministers. It also urged the Ministries to update the information regularly.
The committee of former Chief Information Commissioner AN Tiwari and Information Commissioner MM Ansari, constituted by the CIC, stated this in its report on “Transparency Audit: Towards An Open and Accountable Government”. The panel referred to the circular issued by the Ministry of Personnel dated September 11, 2012 where it asked all departments to proactively disclose expenses incurred on the foreign and domestic visits of their respective ministers.
The committee said this against the backdrop of the PMO not disclosing information about expenses incurred on foreign visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister’s Office(PMO) has been refusing to disclose information related to expenses incurred on Modi’s foreign visits, citing various excuses such as the records that are sought for being “vague”.
“These disclosures should be updated once every quarter,” the committee said in its report asking the government to also disclose other details such as places visited and the institutions/individual interacted, period, number and the names of the members in the official delegation, mode of conveyance, travel expenses and source of funding and outcome of the visit.
It said a democratic Government, keen on empowering the people and delivering to them goods and services speedily and efficiently, cannot allow walls of secrecy to separate them from those they serve.
“Transparency brings the Government closer to its people — a closeness which underpins good governance. In spite of repeated directions to the public authorities, the results on account of voluntary disclosures have been below par,” the panel observed.
It said quite large numbers of wholly avoidable RTI petitions by citizens for information, which should even otherwise be openly available, are still being filed.
“One cardinal aspect of the RTI ie; Timely furnishing of quality information to the citizen, became difficult to be adhered to, while the cost for disclosing information, at all levels, kept increasing,” it said.
The refusals to part with the information are being made even though CIC, in an order, had directed the Cabinet Secretariat to make public expenses incurred on the travel of Ministers and VVIPs because of large public interest in the matter.