Financial Express: New Delhi: Friday, September 20, 2013.
Many central ministries have failed to comply with
a government directive to put details of foreign and domestic tours by their
ministers and senior officials in public domain, a year after the government
made it mandatory to do so.
The Ministry of Personnel had on September 11,
last year asked them to make public the details of tours including its nature,
places visited, the period, number of people in the delegation and total cost
incurred on such travels.
Except for Ministry of Personnel, which had put
online the tour details till June this year, none of the central government
ministries have put an up-to-date list so far on its website. The Prime
Minister's Office has put the detail of tours undertaken by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh till April 2013 but failed to update the list of tours by its
officials.
The tour details in respect of PMO officials is
available on its website for January, February and March 2012.
The ministries of External Affairs, Agriculture,
Power, Environment and Forests and Home Ministry among others have also failed
to put the updated detail of tours undertaken by their ministers and officials
on their websites.
"We have already asked all government
ministries to provide full information in respect of foreign and domestic tours
by ministers and senior officials online. A reminder will again be sent to them
to comply with the directive at earliest," a senior Personnel Ministry
official said.
The Ministry had in April this year reminded all
ministries to comply with the government's directive in-toto and put tour
details of their officials in public domain.
The suo motu decision to put detail of tours in
public was taken after central government departments received frequent
applications under the Right to Information Act seeking information on such
visits.
The decision to put the tour details online is
also in compliance with the RTI Act which mandates a public authority to
provide as much information to public at regular intervals through various
means of communications, the official said.
Each central government ministry or department has
been directed to put the details including nature of the tour, places visited,
period, number of people included in the official delegation and total cost of
such travel undertaken by a minister or senior officer.
However, intelligence organisations, including
RAW, IB, CBI and Enforcement Directorate, among others are exempted from the
directive.
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