Daily Excelsior: Srinagar: Saturday, August 12, 2017.
State Information
Commission (SIC) today took a serious note of frequent instances of dereliction
of duty and negligence on the part of the Public Information Officers (PIOs) of
various departments.
According to
a statement issued by SIC, the Chief Information Commissioner has directed the
PIOs to provide information to the RTI applicants in a time-bound manner and
ordered penalty proceedings against several PIOs under Section 17 of the
J&K RTI Act, 2009.
“Under the
Central Registry of the Commission, penalty proceedings are underway against
the PIOs of J&K Economic Reconstruction Agency, J&K Service Selection
Board, J&K Public Service Commission and Social Welfare Department,” it
said, adding similarly, under Jammu Registry, two penalty proceedings have been
initiated, one each against the Revenue and the Power Development Departments.
Under Kashmir
Registry, three penalty proceedings are underway against PIOs of R&B
Division Pulwama, Srinagar Municipal Corporation and Hydraulic Division,
Bandipora.
The SIC has
recently issued two circulars to the General Administration Department (GAD)
regarding appointment of PIOs and FAAs of appropriate seniority and to provide
information to the RTI applicants as per the standard format adopted by the
Department of Personnel and Training, Govern-ment of India.
Earlier, the
GAD had directed the Administrative Departments, Heads of Department and Public
Authorities of the State to ensure implementation of the provisions of
Section-4 of the J&K RTI Act, 2017 i.e mandatory and suo-moto disclosure of
information by the Public Authorities and designation of APIOs and PIOs in all
the offices within the stipulated time frame.