Indian Express: New Delhi: Monday,
March 20, 2017.
The Central
government claims to have focused on ensuring transparency in governance and
official schemes, but it has neglected appointments in the Central Information
Commission (CIC), one of the bodies that ensures transparency. A Parliamentary
report has now pulled up the Centre for failing to fill 73 per cent vacancies
in the commission and has directed it for urgent appointments. The CIC is
headed by R K Mathur.
The report of
the Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on personnel, public
grievances, law and justice headed by Congress leader Anand Sharma observed
that posts in the CIC are vacant even after 12 years of its establishment in
2005.
Against a
sanctioned strength of 160 staff, only 43 are regular employees, and the rest
are on ad hoc basis, consultants and are outsourced. Moreover, even after
Recruitment Rules were framed, appointments have not been made.
Expressing its
dismay over manning of the Commission’s Secretariat through temporary
appointments, the committee recommended that regular employees be hired so that
its working is made more responsive and accountable.
“Institutions
like CIC are of national importance and play a crucial role in personnel
management and governance of the country. If these organisations are under
staffed, they cannot be expected to impart their responsibilities efficiently,”
the committee said.
Emphasising
that vacancies in institutions under the Department of Personnel and Training
(DoPT) are a persistent problem and it cannot escape its responsibility of
ensuring adequate staff in these institutions.
The RTI Act
2005 provides for setting up a practical regime of right to information for
citizens to access information held by or under government-controlled
authorities. The CIC is the apex appellate authority under section 12 of the
RTI Act.
The CIC was
provided a budgetary allocation of Rs 45 crore, which was spent in 2016-17. For
2017-18, Rs 40.37 crore has been sanctioned.
Venkatesh
Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative said the huge vacancies in
CIC is worrisome and the Commission lacks investigative staff that can prepare
the background of a case based on quality research.
“Contractual
staffers are paid very little and hiring is done by a private agency without
any consideration for expertise needed in the commission. The government should
ensure that people with expertise are hired,” said Nayak.