Times
of India: New Delhi: Thursday, 27 November 2014.
What's the
best way to ensure your government works? The answer may lie in the monthly
summaries that every ministry and department must submit to the cabinet
secretariat on the work they've been doing. But when transparency activist
Venkatesh Nayak attempted to obtain reports for 27 departments under 10
ministries through the Right to Information Act, only six replied in full. More
than half didn't bother writing back at all. And some replied without giving
him the information.
Nayak, programme
coordinator with Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, is now set to petition
the government to disclose these monthly summaries on all ministry and
department websites. Filing monthly summaries is mandatory under the 'Rules of
procedure in regard to proceedings of the cabinet,' a manual compiled in 1987
which itself was kept secret until Nayak battled the administration through RTI
in order to get hold of a copy.
Nayak filed
an RTI query in August this year, asking for monthly summaries for departments
under key ministries such as home, finance, defence, external affairs, social
justice and water resources. While Nayak received the maximum number of replies
from departments under the ministry of finance, his applications were rejected
by the ministry of defence.
The
department of defence under the ministry of defence rejected the RTI
application to provide monthly reports on the grounds that it was exempt from
disclosing information under section 8 (1) (a) of the RTI act, dealing with
national security. "This is a complete misreading of the clause.
Information is exempt only if disclosure will affect national security. The
department did not bother to explain how the entire monthly summary attracts
this provision," says Nayak.
Ironically
the department of personnel and training, which looks after the implementation
of the RTI and the Lokpal Act, did not reply to the RTI query on monthly
submissions.
Strangely,
while Nayak did not receive any information from the departments of
disinvestment and financial services under the ministry of finance, sister
departments such as expenditure, revenue and economic affairs were prompt with
their response.
"One of
the reasons for what was believed to be policy paralysis under the previous
government may have been a lack of adequate monitoring of the work that each
department did. If a report does not come at all, or a report with the word
'nil' is filed, how will the cabinet secretariat or the prime minister even get
to know if work is progressing well or has slowed down?" asks Nayak.
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