Times of India: Chennai: Tuesday, July 10, 2018.
"Right
to Information (RTI) Act is not used by citizens to its full potential because
people are not aware of how to draft an RTI petition," said central
information commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu. He was speaking at a workshop on
RTI and Democracy here on Sunday. More than 100 activists from across the state
took part in the event.
"Most of
the people are not even aware of the various rules under the act and that helps
the officers to deny information to them. Only if people question, we can
change policy," said Sridhar. Replying to a query on how, despite the
central information commissioner passing orders after hearings, the governments
did not implement them, he said the commission cannot follow up on all the
orders and it was the duty of the appellant to appeal again if the orders were
not implemented. "Several court orders are also not implemented by the
administration," he said.
Mohan
Kumaramangalam, president of All India Professionals' Congress (AIPC), Tamil
Nadu chapter, said RTI should be taken to the grassroots in villages. "We
need to educate people about their rights for them to understand what they
deserve. Citizens are generally not even aware of what they are denied,"
he said. Anand Srinivasan, vice president, AIPC, Tamil Nadu chapter, said
digitization will minimise human interaction helping people to avail of
information easily. "There had been 50 murders of RTI activists and more
than 313 were attacked. People were risking their lives just to get
information," he said. Jayaram Venkatesan of Arappor Iyakkam said while
people are trained on how to file RTI petitions, the government trains its
public information officers on how to deny information.
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