While the Right to Information Act (RTI) has entered into its ninth year with all the gung-ho and euphoria created around it by the Centre with its passage, the landmark legislation is yet to make inroads among masses, especially those from deprived sections in the State.
Jharkhand State Information Commission in its latest annual report published for the year 2012 underlined the lacuna and observed that members of Scheduled Tribes and Castes were not very keen and conscious in exercising the rights the Act evinces.
The Commission is of the view that the scope of guidelines and provisions of the Act that has initially been published in regional languages such as Santhali, Mundari, Kurukh and Ho should be widened without much delay if the communities are to reap real benefits of the provisions.
"We have written this to the Government that the Information Commission requires additional funds for holding camps, printing banners and posters for far flung areas and adopt different measures to generate awareness among people but of no use. Barring about Rs 3 lakh that we received from the Centre early this year nothing has come under the head (of awareness)," said Chief Information Commissioner Justice (Retd) DK Sinha in an exclusive talks with The Pioneer on Monday.
It is not that the Commission is just languishing in terms of insufficient fund only, but also the lack of infrastructure such as support staff and even Information Commissioners has hit the functioning of the Commission. "I have plans to hold hearings at regional centres and distant areas so that people feel easy. But we have just one Information Commissioner against the sanctioned strength of six. Pendency of cases had also gone up in the light of the Supreme Court judgment which is now coming down slowly," added the CIC.
After much hue and cry the Government appointed PR Dash as Information Commissioner as the hearing was not possible with a single bench as per the Apex Court verdict. Since coming into existence, latest figures suggest that the Commission has 3,871 appeals pending against the total 14,609 received. The Commission, though feels that attitude of the Government officials towards information seekers has taken a positive turn but there is still lot of scope for improvement.
"Attitude of the officials is changing but breaking the age old mentality would take time. There are officials who unnecessarily delay the information and delay things. They do not show seriousness and run for excuses even when the Act has become a reality," said Information Commissioner PR Dash. He even added that the attitude has potential to erode the credibility of the Act.
However, the Commission has set standards by slapping fines and penalties against erring PIOs that amounted about Rs 3 lakh in the year 2012. At the same time the Commission has also denounced efforts to misuse the provisions. "I have seen appeals seeking information just for exploiting the provisions for BPl and sometimes even to extort money," added Justice (Retd) Sinha.