COUNTERVIEW:
Ahmedabad: Sunday, 04 October 2015.
The Gujarat
Information Commission (GIC), the state's official watchdog of the right to
information (RTI) Act, has taken strong exception to the Gujarat government
failing to make public disclosure of the relevant information of the climate
change department on its website. Issued in September third week, it would
force the state government to set up climate change website, which till date
does not exist.
The CIC order wants the secretary, climate
change, to ensure that “the requirements of the proactive disclosure under RTI
Act are fully operationalised within a period of 90 days from the receipt of
this order.”
The order would
force the Gujarat government to finally come up with a climate change
department website. Though the department was set up in 2010 amidst much
fanfare, with Narendra Modi, then chief minister of India, declaring that the
state is the first in India to take the initiative, till date there is no
website for the department.
In fact, a
click on "climate change department" on the official website of the
state government takes one to the Gujarat Energy Development Agency, the state
outfit meant to promote alternative energy set up decades ago.
The order
states, “The state government is directed to maintain and update the proactive
disclosure material in letter and spirit of the provisions of the RTI Act.”
Agreeing that
a copy of the proactive disclosure material is stated to have been put up on
the notice board of the department, the GIC order, which has been signed by
Balwant Singh, state information commissioner, says the dissemination of public
disclosure should be “communicated to the public through notice boards,
newspapers, public announcements, media broadcasts, the internet or any other
means.”
Singh came up
with his order in response to an RTI complaint by Mahesh Pandya of the
Paryavaran Mitra, a Gujarat-based NGO. He said, it should be the “constant
endeavour of every public authority” to take steps “to provide as much
information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means
or communications, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort
to the use of this Act to obtain information.”
Pandya had
wanted the Gujarat government “maintain all its records duly catalogued and
indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the RTI and ensure that all
records that are appropriate to be computerized are, within a reasonable time
and subject to availability of resources.”
Pandya wanted
the state government to disclose the climate change department's “norms set by
it for the discharge of its functions; and the rules, regulations,
instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by
its employees for discharging its functions.”
The online
proactive disclosure, Pandya had insisted, should include “a statement of the
categories of documents that are held by it or under its control”, as also “the
particulars of any arrangement that exists for consultation with, or
representation by the members of the public in relation to the formulation of
its policy or implementation thereof.”
Other
information should include, he said, about meetings of the boards, councils,
committees and other bodies which exist under the department, their minutes,
the monthly remuneration received by each of its officers and employees, budget
allocation, proposed expenditures, the manner of execution of subsidy
programmes, and son.
The GIC said,
“All materials shall be disseminated taking into consideration the cost
effectiveness, local language and the most effective method of communication in
that local area and the information should be easily accessible, to the extent
possible in electronic format", and be available “free or at such cost of
the medium or the print cost price as may be prescribed.”