Government tries to shield nuclear-safety law from RTI ambit.

India Today:Sunday, February 05, 2012.

The government appears to be taking the backdoor route to dilute the Right to Information (RTI) Act. It has quietly included provisions to amend the RTI Act under the proposed nuclear safety law.

If these amendments are allowed, not only will it become to get information on nuclear safety, other government agencies may also follow suit to escape the RTI Act ambit.

"The RTI Act over-rides all laws. To counter this, new laws are coming out with specific clauses," Shekhar Singh of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information said.

One of the proposed amendments to the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority Bill, 2011, seeks to add regulatory bodies which are to be set up under it in the second schedule of the RTI Act. This will exempt them from the purview of the RTI Act like intelligence and security organisations.

Experts said the amendment is an attempt to compromise with transparency on nuclear safety. "How can the government place organisations which are yet to be set up under this schedule?" said Venkatesh Nayak, programme coordinator with Access to Information Programme of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.