CIC wants RTI cell in each ministry

If the government accepts Central Information Commission’s proposal to have a cell dedicated for Right To Information (RTI) in each ministry, getting a response might become easier.

Updated on: Jul 26, 2010, 24:39:43 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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If the government accepts Central Information Commission’s proposal to have a cell dedicated for Right To Information (RTI) in each ministry, getting a response might become easier.

Instead of having one Public Information Officer (PIOs), ministries have designated PIOs for each section, thereby making filing an application under Right To Information a tedious process.

To overcome this problem, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah had proposed a model, where each ministry will have a cell committed to deal with all matters relating to RTI. The model will also suggest ways to improve efficiency of RTI cells already working in ministries such an Environment and Forests.

“All RTI applications will have to be filed with the cell, which will then be forward to the Public Information Officers concerned and will even send them reminders about by when the information has to be provided,” Habibullah told HT.

The cell will also act as an appellate authority for all RTI applications in the ministry.

The transparency watchdog’s proposed model would be similar to the one in United Kingdom, where a dedicated freedom of information office ensures that timely reply is given to each application. The office also decides what information can be put in public domain.

In India, the clog of secrecy is still maintained in a bid to retain bureaucratic power. Even four years after implementing the law, most government ministries have not voluntarily disclosed information as per the RTI law’s Section 4.

“Even simple information regarding procedures have not been disclosed,” said an information commissioner.

Habibullah believes that the RTI cell, whose structure

is yet to be finalised, can improve the government’s record on transparency.

“We will have to see how the cell works in practice. But, the idea is to make seeking information easier for the citizens,” he said.

The proposed RTI cell will be first be set up in ministries of Home Affairs, Finance, Railways, Human Resource Development, State Bank of India and the Delhi Development Authority.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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