Times of India: Lucknow: Tuesday, June 25, 2013.
Fine imposed
on a government official for not providing information under the Right to
Information (RTI) Act should be recovered from his salary. To ensure action,
fine should be recovered at the time of preparing the salary statement. The
recovery of RTI fine has been as less as 1% in the state.
The direction
has come from the state-level committee set up to review the implementation of
RTI Act in the state. The committee has met for the first time during the
present government. The committee headed by chief secretary deliberated on
several issues which impede the implementation of the Act in UP.
Based on
recommendations of the committee, the Administrative Reforms Department (ARD)-nodal
department for implementation of the RTI Act in UP-issued directions to
government departments on May 30 to follow the RTI norms. The departments have
to furnish compliance report by June-end.
The
departments will have to comply with the Section 4(1)(B) of the Act that calls
for uploading the particulars of the organisation; functions and duties. The
departments have to follow the norms, and have been directed to furnish
compliance report, said the RTI response to Urvashi Sharma.
Besides, to
realise the fine imposed on the government departments for not providing
information under RTI Act in the stipulated time period, the committee directed
that recovery of fine should be reviewed monthly and report be sent to the
government. Apart from this a nodal officer be appointed to ensure that the
fine was recovered.
The committee
also directed that a full-time secretary be appointed to facilitate the
functioning of the commission. The UP State Information Commission (UPSIC)
never had a full-time secretary.
RTI has
always been in bad shape in UP. The changing regimes have not done much to
ameliorate the state of RTI affairs. The biggest proof of it is that the
state-level committee set up to review the implementation of RTI Act in UP has
been more or less defunct.
It was
constituted on July 7, 2008, under the chairmanship of the chief secretary to
review the decisions of SIC and penalties imposed on a monthly/quarterly basis.
But, the successive state governments have not taken interest in RTI matters.
In the last government, the committee could meet only thrice in five years,
when 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, the first year of SP government in office. It met for the first
time on April 4 under the present government.
The committee
has among its members principal secretary/secretary of law department,
administrative reforms departmenrt, personnel department, secretariat
administration and secretary of UPSIC. The said committee has met only thrice
so far - on December 1, 2008; May 7, 2009; and September 22, 2010.
.JPG)
.JPG)
