Vice-President Hamid Ansari expressed concern over the pendency of cases with the Information Commissioners of Central and State Governments. He was speaking at a function after inaugurating a new building housing the State Information Commission in lucknow on Monday. “The transformative powers of the Act is yet to be realised. The citizens, the Government, the media and the civil society need to address the constraining factors to ensure an effective and equitable implementation of the Act,” he said.
“On an average about 3,000 new appeals and complaints are filed before the UP Information Commission every month. This is a large figure even for a State like UP and perhaps, indicative of the need for improving the quality of voluntary disclosure. Public authorities must be proactive and voluntarily put maximum possible information in public domain for the use of citizens,” said the Vice-president.
He said the data available in the Annual Report for the period 2014-15, released by the Central Information Commission is revealing. Only 2,030 public authorities under the Government registered to submit their RTI returns under Section 25 of the Act in 2014-15. Of these, only 75.27 per cent submitted their annual RTI returns.