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Although the Right to Information Act is being effectively used by hundreds of citizens, an ongoing survey shows that the government is struggling to keep up with significant public awareness and use of the transparency law in the three years of its existence
According to the preliminary findings of a study that was released and discussed in the presence of Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah in New Delhi on October 13, 2008, the Right to Information Act suffers from the problems of a weak infrastructure and public information officers (PIOs) who are unaware of their exact role. “Almost half the PIOs interviewed in rural India said they were not aware that they were PIOs,” notes the study, a participatory exercise undertaken by the Right to Information Assessment and Analysis Group (RAAG) and the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) in partnership with a number of academic institutions and voluntary agencies, across five states and 120 villages. In the study, an overwhelming number of PIOs -- nodal officers who receive and dispense with RTI applications -- cite lack of training and unfamiliarity with the law as key hurdles in their ability to effectively service RTI requests. “Over half said they had received no RTI training, and many complained of unavailability of guides or manuals to understand the law better. Over a third said they do not even have a copy of the RTI Act,” says the study. This, when RTI activists and citizens feel the Act has been a runaway success since its enactment by the Union government on October 11, 2005. “The RTI Act has made a positive impact on the lives of people like no other Act has done before. More and more people are filing RTI queries to procure information, which was earlier denied by government officials,” says activist Shailesh Gandhi, now an information commissioner with the Central Information Commission, Delhi. The study adds: “The government responds, though sometimes slowly. Of the total applications filed, nearly two-thirds got a response from the public authorities. However, only a third of these applications were responded to within the stipulated 30 days.” It states that Meghalaya was “the worst performer” with no PIOs found at the village level, while Rajasthan was “the best performer” with nearly all PIOs available and interviewed. The other major finding of the study was that more men than women were using RTI across the country. “Rural applicants were overwhelmingly male. And the same goes for Delhi, where over three-fourths of 162 randomly selected applicants surveyed were male,” says the study. In Maharashtra, the Act has been a success with around 3.7 lakh citizens filing RTI queries in the last three years. RTI activists and citizens, however, say the growing pendency of second appeals is cause for concern. An applicant is forced to file a second appeal when both the PIO and first appellate authority deny information on flimsy grounds. “The high pendency of appeals is slowly killing the Act. Applicants have to wait for more than a year for a hearing of their second appeal,” says Bhaskar Prabhu of Mahiti Adhikar Manch, an NGO dealing with RTI-related issues. The six information commissions in Maharashtra had 16,866 appeals pending till the end of June this year; Mumbai alone had 4,818 pleas. It’s the same story in neighbouring Karnataka. Commissioner of the Karnataka Information Commission K A Thippeswamy said his office was receiving 1,600 applications every month from citizens seeking data and information on various issues. The commission has recommended that the government enact a Karnataka Records Act to manage and maintain records. Thippeswamy also urged government officials to be more forthcoming in providing information to applicants. A press release stated that several surveys and studies done by civil society organisations such as Consumer Rights Education and Awareness Trust (CREAT) and Public Affairs Centre have found that public authorities have not given the details of officers in charge of the RTI Act. Besides, knowledge among officials about the RTI Act itself was under question. There was a general feeling that delays in disposing of appeals and complaints were slowly eroding confidence among RTI applicants. Activists have been protesting that commissioners are not selected in a transparent manner and that 75-80% are retired public servants. “The delay is going to kill the Act,” Shailesh Gandhi fears. “This kind of under-performance is curious. Why are these commissioners taking things so lightly?” At the same time he says: “The Act is like giving food to a famine-stricken area. People have not been empowered over the years. First you have to break the cynicism that nothing is possible. What holds people back is their apathy and cynicism. If they overcome that, this can be a wonderfully empowering tool.” Source: The Indian Express, October 13, 2008
The Hindu, October 12, 2008
http://mangalorean.com, October 2008
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