Economic Times: New Delhi:
Saturday, April 06, 2013.
Transparency
is a tough act to perform, the government is finding out, forcing it to travel
the same path it did six months ago when it directed all arms to make public
details of domestic and foreign tours of ministers and top babus.
None of the
major ministries or departments followed the example of the department of
personnel & training (DoPT), which had sent out and taken the lead in
implementing the official memorandum directing that details of each official
tour be disclosed on the websites of ministries. The website of the Prime
Minister's Office, as ETfound out, exemplifies the reluctance to open up tour
details to public scrutiny.
It provides
some details of tours by PMO officials until March 2012, but without any mention
of the cost, defeating the purpose of the initiative aimed at demonstration of
austerity as much as transparency. The DoPT issued the directive and informed
the Central Information Commission after the public authorities were besieged
with applications under the Right to Information Act amid concerns over the
value for money spent on such tours.
When it
became clear the directive had been royally ignored, the department again wrote
to all ministries and departments, including the PMO, on Thursday.
"Attention is invited to this department's official memorandum (OM) issued
last September, advising the public authorities to proactively disclose the
details of all foreign and domestic official tours of minister(s) and officials
of the rank of joint secretary and above and heads of departments since January
1, 2012, and to update the disclosure once every quarter starting from July 1,
2012," the DoPT's April 3 note said.
The DoPT
noted that its earlier order had not been complied with. "It has come to
the notice of this department that some of the public authorities are not
disclosing such information or are providing only partial information and are
also not updating it regularly," the department said, adding, "It is
again advised that all public authorities may strictly comply with the advisory
contained in the department's OM of September 11, 2012."
A reply to an
RTI application last year had revealed that Rs 678 crore was spent on foreign
tours of ministers in 2011-12. In its note last September, the DoPT had pointed
out that Section 4 of the RTI Act required every public authority to suo motu
provide as much information to the public as possible at regular intervals
through various means of communication, including the Internet, so people have
to make minimum use of the RTI Act to obtain information.
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