Govt disinterested in RTI meetings?

Times of India: Lucknow: Monday, April 15, 2013.

The Right to Information (RTI) Act has always been in bad shape in UP. The changing regimes have not done much to ameliorate the state of RTI affairs in the state. The biggest proof on that is defunct state of the state-level committee set up to review the implementation of RTI Act in the state. The committee which was constituted on July 7, 2008, and was intended to review the implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act has met on only three occasions till now whereas it was supposed to meet monthly/quarterly to take stock of RTI implementation.

The RTI response says the committee did not meet even once between March 15, 2012 and March 8, 2013, which was the first year of SP government in office. It was on July 7, 2008 that the state-level committee under the chairmanship of the chief secretary was constituted to review the decisions of and penalties imposed by the state information commission (SIC) on a monthly/quarterly basis. The committee's role was expanded to include the regular review of the RTI implementation by government departments.

Principal secretary/secretary of law department, administrative reforms departmenrt, personnel department, secretariat administration and secretary of UPSIC are among the members of the committee. The said committee has met only thrice so far - on December 1, 2008; May 7, 2009; and September 22, 2010. The RTI seeker had sought information about the proceedings of the meetings of the committee in the last one year.

The nodal department for RTI implementation in UP, Administrative Reforms department, said the committee hasn't met even once and hence the information sought can not be provided. The government order that provided for the constitution of the committee said the principal secretaries/secretaries of the departments that get penalized for poor implementation of RTI Act should be asked to participate in the review meetings of the committee.

While, that's still a far cry, the fact that government's disinterest in organizing regular meetings of the committee has rendered its purpose redundant.