The Hindu: Chennai: Monday, July 09, 2018.
Panel
official rues lack of awareness
Strongly
advocating the need for political parties to willingly come under the Right to
Information (RTI) Act 2005, Sridhar Acharyulu, Information Commissioner,
Central Information Commission said parties in power must be answerable to the
people.
“On the use
of the RTI Act in our country, a lot to be done as the Act can be used much
more effectively by the people,” he said.
Mr. Acharyulu
was addressing a workshop organised by RTI warriors from the All India
Professionals Congress (AIPC) and Belson and Belson Advocates. Highlighting the
features of the RTI Act 2005, he said it was the Congress government that
introduced the Act, but it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that had used it
effectively.
“Information
procured through the RTI Act exposed scandals across various levels in the
functioning of the State before the elections,” he said.
He initially
spoke about the lack of knowledge among people about knowing and being aware of
their rights. “We also need to examine the access to critical information
available and the mechanisms in place to disseminate it to the people,” he
noted. The workshop was attended by law students, IAS aspirants, members of the
general public and activists. Swapna Sundar, a member of the AIPC, said that
while the RTI Act was a good tool, it was necessary to help people learn the
nuances and pertinences of the requests for documents
Talks on RTI and
Financial integrity and the issues and challenges in the use of the act were a
part of the workshop.
Mohan
Kumaramangalam, president of the Tamil Nadu Chapters of the AIPC, spoke about
the effective use of the RTI Act in recent times by a group of farmers in Salem
who opposed land acquisition for airport expansion.
“With
awareness of the Act being the key, workshops like these need to go more out
into rural spaces as well. The mechanism in place as a part of the RTI Act too
needs to be made easier for people both to file petitions and receive
information,” he said.