PSBs rejecting information requests under RTI Act: Study

Economic Times: Nidhi Sharma: New Delhi: Friday, April 20, 2018.

Public sector banks are increasingly rejecting information requests under the Right to Information Act, an independent study has found. 

A study conducted by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative on the 2016-17 statistics furnished by 25 public sector banks and the Reserve Bank of India to the Central Information Commission (CIC) reveals that while the banks account for 9% of the total applications received, they account for 33% of the rejections of requests. 

The report found that 15 of 25 public sector banks reported an increase in the number of RTI applications as compared to the previous year. In 2016-17, more people sought information from banks as compared to other public authorities under the finance ministry. 

The most number of applications – 25,300 – were received by State Bank of India, accounting for more than a third (33.20%) of the total number of RTI applications received by public sector banks. The RBI reported receiving more than 13,000 RTI applications in 2016-17 – an increase of over 14% over the previous year. 

Though there has been an increase in the number of RTIs being filed in the banks, statistics show there is not much load on individual branches. In fact, a PSU bank branch handles on an average one RTI request in a year. Only 3 PSBs, namely, State Bank of India (1.39), State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (1.25) and Punjab National Bank (1.10) averaged more than 1RTI application per branch in 2016-17. 

Venkatesh Nayak of CHRI said, “it is quite possible that some branch offices might receive more RTI applications than others. It is important to conduct a third party assessment of the spread of RTI applications between bank branches and then identify measures to assist those branches receiving a large number of RTI applications to deal with them speedily.” 

More than the flow of RTIs, what has got activists worried is the rejection rate of public sector banks. 

The State Bank of Hyderabad rejected a record 71% or 7 out of every 10 RTI applications received in 2016-17. OBC rejected every second RTI application (50% rejection rate).