The Arunachal Times: Arunachal Pradesh: Wednesday, June
27, 2018.
The
engineering departments-PWD, RWD, PHE, Power, APEDA, and UD in the state have a
notorious reputation of not doing enough for the people of the state or not
doing anything at all, while the engineers working in these departments have
even worse reputations.
Adding to the
reputation of not doing anything that is sustainable or long lasting; being
corrupt and rampantly misusing government money, some of the engineers have
gone a step further by refusing to furnish information to the citizens under
the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.
Within a span
of a few weeks this year, executive engineers across engineering departments
have refused to furnish information pertaining to implementation of various
government schemes.
The Aalo PHE
Division, Seppa and Yinkiong RWD, West Kameng Electrical Division, Nacho PWD,
and Pasighat WRD have been penalized Rs 25,000 each by the Arunachal Pradesh
Information Commission (APIC) for not furnishing information to the citizens.
Now, the
commission has done its job of penalizing and the next step is disciplinary
action under Section 20 of RTI Act if the defiance continues.
It is not
only the engineering departments; other employees too have refused to give
information, whereas the very basic tenet of the RTI Act is transparency and
accountability by public offices. The Act is the most important right given to
the people to check governance and government employees who disregard laid down
rules rampantly.
While the
Commission has, more or less lived up to the mandate given to it by panelizing
defaulters, the Act itself has not been properly used in the state by the
citizens and even the media.
While we all
make it a point to talk about corruption, are we actually using the provision
that is there to ensure governance or check lack of it? Not really.
There is a
huge scope to check rampant corruption, by procuring information and acting
upon it, if citizens in the state use the Act properly.
Unlike
before, it is not expensive to get information. Remember, there was a time when
it cost Rs 10 per page to get information after the state cabinet in 2010, at
the behest of government officials, figured out that Rs 2 ensured easy access
to information.
One must
thank Nabam Pali who went to the High court in 2014 after he was asked to pay a
whopping Rs 5, 75, 700 by the public information officer of the WCD department,
Government of Arunachal Pradesh, pertaining to documents related to
implementation of the Integrated Child Development Service.
Even though
information comes cheap these days, there have hardly been any takers. Perhaps,
the situation will change in the future, but one must also remember that,
individuals have used the Act to harass the officials or to extort money from
them.
If a
government employee has nothing to hide, he or she will pass on the required
information and not comply with extortionists, who otherwise masquerade around
as RTI activists. We should start a discourse on that soon!
Chief
Information Commissioner, Dr Joram Begi, during an awareness programme said
that the RTI Act should be used to ensure accountability and it is a tool for
the common citizens to enforce transparency in the entire developmental
process. Any takers?
One can only
hope that the system is transparent and the government officials, including the
elite IAS, APCS and the corrupt yet gratified engineers are forthcoming enough
to share information without waiting for anyone to use the RTI Act.
The
reluctance of those in power and indifference of those who can make a
difference by using the RTI Act, including yours truly, will only ensure that
transparent governance is merely a talking point, not worth applying.
In the
meantime, yours truly wonders whether those engineers who refused to give
information under the Act will pay from their personal or whatever pocket, or
will the department end up paying.
Need to fill
that form to find out!