Times of India; Sunday 24 April 2011,
HYDERABAD: It has been more than five months since the posts of state information commissioners are lying vacant in the Andhra Pradesh Information Commission (APIC). Due to absence of commissioners, the APIC has become defunct except for chief information commissioner Jannat Hussain, the lone man holding the fort in the department. Instead of appointing new commissioners to fill up the existing vacancies, the state government has been creating new posts.
Acting on the request of former chief information commissioner C D Arha, the state government has sanctioned the posts of four judicial officers with a monthly remuneration of Rs 15,000 each. Further, approvals have been given for appointing two new data entry operators with a monthly remuneration of Rs 5,500. Candidates to both the posts would be appointed on a contract basis. Jobs to the hired candidates would be outsourced for a period of one year to begin with and later extended if found efficient.
According to the government order, the need to appoint more people was felt as the APIC was created with a skeletal staff strength, which adversely affected the functioning of the commission. These new appointments would help the commissioners to scrutinise the appeals and complaints.
Earlier this year, the state government released funds to the tune of Rs 3.35 lakh to get in place the required infrastructure to accommodate all the newly appointed persons at the commission.
"The state government is indifferent to the appointment of the new commissioners. In the absence of state commissioners, the APIC cannot function for long. The pendency status of cases also has shot to an all time high in the last six months," said Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu, an RTI activist from the city.
Significantly, all three state information commissioners retired in November and not a single person has been appointed to replace them in office yet.
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