Hindustan Times: New Delhi: Wednesday, May 10, 2017.
An analysis
by a Delhi-based advocacy group of over 80,000 applications filed under the
Right To Information Act with 24 major public sector undertaking (PSU) banks
shows that their rate of rejection increased in 2015-16 as compared to the
previous 3 years.
These 24
banks, which blamed the transparency law enacted in 2005 for governance
constraints, accounted for about 40% of the RTI applications filed with the
finance ministry. A Reserve Bank of India appointed PJ Nayak committee had cited
RTI as one of the “constraints” on the governance in the banks.
Ventakesh
Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Nayak studied the Central
Information Commission’s annual report on RTI and found that as compared to
2014-15, the rejection rates have gone up in 50% of the public sector banks
indicating that the banks were reluctant in providing the information sought.
In banks such
as Andhra Bank and State Bank of Hyderabad, the rejection rate was higher than
50% of the applications received. For most banks, the average rejection rate
was 20-30% much higher than average of 10% by the central government
ministries.
Most of the
applications received by the banks are related to non-performing assets,
discrepancies in bank accounts of applicants and reasons for not opening an
account.
“As regards
the RTI load on public sector banks, the average applications received in a
branch was not more than 2 thereby debunking the constraint theory projected by
PJ Nayak committee,” Nayak said.
His theory is
based on the argument that most banks have adequate staff to deal with rising
RTI applications but were reluctant to provide information citing constraint on
resources.
Nayak also
found no co-relation between non-performing assets of the banks and the volume
of the RTI applications filed, saying to establish the link a more detailed
analysis was required.
The banks had
opposed RTI applications seeking information about loan defaults citing privacy
provisions but the Supreme Court in 2016 directed them to provide information
citing larger public interest.
“A content
analysis of the RTI applications received and the manner of their disposal by
these banks will be necessary to establish any positive or negative correlation
in this regard. Such a study is the urgent need of the hour,” Nayak said.
Among the banks,
the State Bank of India received one-third of the total information requests
followed by the Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda.