Times of India: Ponda-Goa:
Tuesday, April 23, 2013.
Major general
SCN Jatar, a senior RTI activist, has demanded that the Goa government must
upload all its house committee assurances with an action taken report on
official websites for the information of the general public.
Jatar, who
was in Goa for the first 'Rural All Goa RTI Convention' held at Marcaim on
Sunday, told TOI that governments always give several assurances to the house,
however, common people have very less knowledge about it.
Thus the
government must upload all its assurances with the action taken report on its
official websites, he said.
Besides, the
house committees formed by the assemblies and government deals with several
important issues and people must know about it.
Jatar, who
was instrumental in making the Maharashtra government open all documents of the
Pune city corporation and the collectorate for public inspection every Monday,
has demanded the same practice to be started in Goa.
He said that
any person can inspect the official documents on that day and can ask for
certified copies of it and he can get the copies on the very next day.
"The RTI
act has obliged the public servant under Section 4 to provide all information
to public thus the inspection of documents can be done under this clause.
However, people should apply for the information under Section 6," he
said. To make the information available for public, government can form a
separate cell in the central library dedicated to RTI and important files and
maps can be made available through it, he added.
Speaking
about practical difficulties about getting information under the act, he said
that many times people cannot find relative information during inspections and
people should ask the authority to give in writing why they don't have that
information. The act does not permit it, the senior activist said.
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