Moneylife: Pune: Friday,
September 20, 2013.
In order to
reduce the number of individual RTI applications, Department of Personnel &
Training-DoPT, has issued fresh guidelines to public authorities to suo motu publish
all information as required under Section 4 of the RTI Act, based on a
taskforce report. But does any public authority care?
Four months
after the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) issued fresh guidelines
to public authorities to abide by the suo motu disclosure under the Right to
Information (RTI) Act, the implementation seems questionable going by the
general indifference of Public Information Officers (PIOs). This would have
strengthened compliance with provisions for proactive disclosure as given in
Section 4 of the RTI Act.
The
government had appointed a Task Force comprising leading RTI activists of the
Civil Society in 2011. Based on the report, the DoPT has directed all public
authorities to strictly abide by the norms. The office memorandum to all public
authorities states, “…The purpose of suo motu disclosures under Section 4 is to
place large amount of information in public domain on a proactive basis to make
the functioning of the Public Authorities more transparent and also to reduce
the need for filing individual RTI applications.”
Citing that
the “quality and quantity of proactive disclosure is not up to the desired
level, it was felt that the weak implementation of the Section 4 of the RTI Act
is partly because certain provisions of this Section have not been fully
detailed and, in case of certain other provisions, there is need for laying
down detailed guidelines. Further there is need to set up a compliance
mechanism to ensure that requirements under section 4 of the RTI Act are met.”
The
guidelines issued by DoPT on 15 April 2013 include posting of information on
websites too. Interestingly, all government departments have to mandatorily
include a chapter on RTI Act compliance. The memo states, “Government has
issued directions to all Ministries/ Departments to include a chapter on RTI
Act in their Annual Reports submitted to the Parliament. Details about
compliance with proactive disclosure guidelines should mandatorily be included
in the relevant chapter in Annual Report of Ministry/Department.’’
Every public
authority has been asked to do an audit report and the respective ministry has
been asked to monitor it.
Following are
the rules that should have been implemented by all public authorities:
Procurement
made by Public Authorities:
•
publication
of notice/tender enquiries, corrigenda thereon, and details of bid awards
detailing the name of the supplier of goods/services being procured or the
works contracts entered or any such combination of these and the rate and total
amount at which such procurement or works contract is to be done should be
disclosed.
Public
Private Partnerships :
•
If
Public services are proposed to be provided through a
public-private-partnership (PPP), all information relating to the PPPs must be
disclosed in the public domain by the Public Authority entering into the PPP
contract/concession agreement. This may include details of the special purpose
vehicle (SPV), if any set up, detailed project reports, concession agreements,
operation and maintenance manuals and other documents generated as part of the
implementation of the PPP project. Further, information about fees, tolls, or
other kinds of revenue that may be collected under authorization from the Government,
information in respect of outputs and outcomes, process of selection of the
private sector party may also be proactively disclosed. All payments made under
the PPP project may also be disclosed in a periodic manner along with the
purpose of making such payment.
Transfer
Policy and Transfer Orders :
•
Transfer
policy for different grades/cadres of employees serving in Public Authority
should be proactively disclosed. All transfer orders should be publicized
through the website or in any other manner listed in Section 4(4) of the Act.
These guidelines would not be applicable in cases of transfers made keeping in
view sovereignty, integrity, security, strategic, scientific or economic
interests of the State and the exemptions covered under Section 8 of the Act.
These instructions would not apply to security and intelligence organizations
under the second schedule of the RTI Act.
RTI
Applications :
•
All
Public Authorities shall proactively disclose RTI applications and appeals
received and their responses, on the websites maintained by Public Authorities
with search facility based on key words. RTI applications and appeals received
and their responses relating to the personal information of an individual may
not be disclosed, as they do not serve any public interest.
Citizens
Charter :
•
As
part of the Result Framework Document of the department/organization should be
proactively disclosed and six monthly report on the performance against the
benchmarks set in Citizens Charter should also be displayed on the website of
public authorities.
Discretionary
and Non-discretionary grants :
•
All
discretionary /non-discretionary grants/ allocations to state governments/
NGOs/Other institutions by Ministry/Department should be placed on the website
of the Ministry/ Department concerned. Annual Accounts of all legal entities
who are provided grants by Public Authorities should be made available through
publication, directly or indirectly on the Public Authority’s website.
Foreign
Tours of PM/Ministers :
•
A
large number of RTI queries are being filed on official tours undertaken by
Ministers or officials of various Government Ministries/Departments.
Information regarding the nature, place and period of foreign and domestic
tours of Prime Minister are already disclosed on the PMO’s website. As per
DoPT’s OM No. 1/8/2012-IR dated 11/9/2012, Public Authorities may proactively
disclose the details of foreign and domestic official tours undertaken by the
Minister(s) and officials of the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of
India and above and Heads of Departments, since 1st January, 2012. The
disclosures may be updated once every quarter.
•
Information
to be disclosed proactively may contain nature of the official tour, places
visited, the period, number of people included in the official delegation and
total cost of such travel undertaken
Guidelines
for digital publication of proactive disclosure under Section 4
•
Section
4 lays down that information should be provided through many mediums depending
upon the level of the public authority and the recipient of information (for
example, in case of Panchayat, wall painting may be more effective means of
dissemination of information), and that more and more proactive disclosure
would gradually be made through Internet. There is need for more clear
guidelines for web-based publication of information for disclosure
•
It
should be the endeavour of all public authorities that all entitlements to
citizens and all transactions between the citizen and government are gradually
made available through computer based interface. The ‘Electronic Delivery of
Services Bill, 2012’under formulation in Government of India would provide the
necessary impetus.
•
Websites
should contain detailed information from the point of origin to the point of
delivery of entitlements/services provided by the Public Authorities to
citizens
•
Orders
of the public authority should be uploaded on the website immediately after
they have been issued
•
Website
should contain all the relevant Acts, Rules, forms and other documents which
are normally accessed by citizens
•
Each
Ministry/Public Authority shall ensure that these guidelines are fully
operationalized within a period of 6 months from the date of their issue
•
Proactive
disclosure as per these guidelines would require collating a large quantum of
information and digitizing it. Ministries/Public Authorities may engage
consultants or outsource such work to expeditiously comply with these guidelines.
For this purpose, the plan/non-plan funds of that department may be utilized
•
Each
Ministry/ Public Authority should get its proactive disclosure package audited
by third party every year. The audit should cover compliance with the proactive
disclosure guidelines as well as adequacy of the items included in the package.
The audit should examine whether there are any other types of information which
could be proactively disclosed. Such audit should be done annually and should
be communicated to the Central Information Commission annually through
publication on their own websites. All Public Authorities should proactively
disclose the names of the third party auditors on their website
•
For
carrying out third party audit through outside consultants also,
ministries/Public Authorities should utilize their plan/non-plan funds. The
Central Information Commission should examine the third-party audit reports for
each Ministry/Public Authority and offer advice/recommendations to the
concerned Ministries/ Public Authorities.
•
Central
Information Commission should carry out sample audit of few of the Ministries/
Public Authorities each year with regard to adequacy of items included as well
as compliance of the Ministry/Public Authority with these guidelines.
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