Times
of India: Bhopal: Thursday, 02 July 2015.
Madhya state
information commission wobbles when it comes to firm and transparent
implementation of RTI Act.
State
commission has not only failed to prod general administration department (GAD),
nodal department to ensure enactment of the transparency tool, it has also kept
its eyes wide shut on enforcing online application of queries. A common online
portal for all government departments to allow online filing of RTI pleas can
cut down leg work of applicants. But GAD has been sleeping on both
implementation and execution, despite IT experts of GAD being trained to handle
the online portal by National Informatics Centre (NIC).
Introduction
of the common online portal was on the agenda of department of personnel and
training to allow filing of online queries on a common platform from where
applications would be directed to respective PIOs of concerned departments.
Application fee of Rs 10 can be paid through debit card.
Employees of
IT department of GAD were called for training at NIC in April, but till date
online portal has not being uplinked. Technical support would be given by NIC
while the administrative part was to be under GAD.
"90%
complaints we receive from applicants is about PIOs not admitting their pleas.
Applicants have to run from pillar to post to file one application and most of
the time PIOs are unavailable at their desk. The major dilemma faced is when
PIOs scrutinize the application and reject it by pointing out errors in
application. The online portal will bring transparency, but GAD is trying to
stop it to paralyse the RTI Act and make it toothless," said RTI activist
%Ajay Dubey.
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