Times of India: Chennai: Friday,
March 24, 2017.
Penalties
imposed on central public information officers (CPIOs) under the provisions of
the RTI Act went up by close to 50% in 2015-16, as compared to 2014-15.
Data released
by the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions shows that a
penalty of Rs 10.52 lakh was collected from CPIOs in 2015-16. The corresponding
figures for 2014-15 and 2013-14 is Rs 7.39 lakh and Rs 19.25 lakh,
respectively.
The Right to
Information Act, 2005 provides for imposition of penalty by CIC against central
public information officers (CPIO), in pursuance of section 20 of the RTI Act.
The ministry
told the Parliament on Wednesday that the government had conducted training and
capacity building programmes for public information officers and first
appellate authorities through state government training institutes for
effective implementation of the RTI Act.
Ministries
and departments and other public authorities are proactively working towards
suo motu disclosure and more information is put on their websites so as to
reduce the need for filing RTI applications.
.JPG)
.JPG)
