Several reminders and after passing through eight long years of the Right to Information Act the conservative nature of the State Government is hard to die down. Recent in this direction has come in the report published by the State Information Commission which points out lethargy of public authorities in coming out with 17-point manual, mandated under the provisions of section 4(I) (b) of the RTI Act, 2005.
The clause of the Act, that intends to infuse transparency and accountability among public servants, make it liable to them to publish the 17-point manual of information. The section was incorporated in the Act which the intent to suomotu disseminate information facilitating the citizens to have minimum resort to RTI applications for getting information from the Public Information Officers (PIOs) of the concerned public authority.
“Most of the public authorities in the State of Jharkhand have not published 17 points manual of information suomotu though such publication through different modes is mandatory in nature. Putting or dissemination of 17 point information on the website portal shall definitely minimise the hardships of the information seekers,” said the recent annual report published by the Commission for the year 2012.
This might also be reason behind leaping number of complaints coming to the Commission in the want of information. Total 2,738 appeals have been admitted in 2012. Numbers of second appeals and complaints filed in the Commission have gradually increased manifold year to year, revealed a senior officials of the Jharkhand SIC.
The report, published after two years, says further: “The State Information Commission has occasions to observe that even once the manual is prepared, it is never updated under the provisions of section 4(I) (xvii) of the Act. The public authorities must be conscious that publication of 17 point manual of information be updated even in cases of slight change and bring in within public domain. Such exercise would certainly reduce the number of filing of applications under RTI Act at various stages saving the precious tile, deployment of personnel and the public resources and it would promote transparency and bring aout accountability and honesty to the public authority.”
The Commission does not stop here and went even further expressing its bitter experience with the public authorities. The report while sharing the experience of the SIC said that during hearing of appeals and complaints the Commission observed that PIOs generally were not attentive to the provisions of limitation of time schedule given under the RIT Act.
“Therefore, it needs serious attention to train the State Public Information Officer,” the report suggested.
The Commission observed that junior most officers and sometimes non-gazetted staffs are assigned and nominated as the State PIOs over and above their original work thus making then reluctant in dealing with RTI applications with sincerity.
When contacted, Information Commissioner PR Dash also admitted about the attitudinal problem existing among the officials. “It is there. There is still a mindset to block information than revealing in a larger public interest. This need to be modified,” said Dash.