More and more people need to be made aware of Right to Information, said Chief Information Commissioner of Chhattisgarh Serjius Minj, here on Tuesday.
He said that even now the citizens were not aware of their rights. Till then the people were not made aware of it, the objective of the Right to Information Act would not be fulfilled, he added. Minj was addressing the inaugural session of a one-day workshop on the “Right to Information Act-2005- self-disclosure by public authorities” at Chhattisgarh State Academy of Administration here on Tuesday.
Minj said the Act came into existence when the objective of providing information to the citizens about their rights given in the Constitution of India could not be done effectively. He said under the Right to Information, generally ambiguous information was being sought from the offices. Right to Information Act provides the rights to public authorities not to give information on ambiguous information sought by the people.
Under Section 4 of the Right to Information Act, all government departments have to make available 17-point information on their website. With which the citizens would automatically get most of the information of the department. As such the number of application would come down to 50 per cent, he added. Director of Chhattisgarh state academy of administration Mudit Kumar Singh delivered the welcome speech. 17 public information officers of different government offices were present as participants in the workshop.