Guidelines for third party audit

Times of India: Pune: Friday, January 31, 2014.

The Union government has formulated guidelines to provide for a third party audit by the public authorities of the proactive disclosures to assess their level of compliance with these guidelines. The government earlier issued detailed guidelines to central ministries / departments for proactive disclosure under section 4 of the RTI Act on April 15, 2013. State governments have also been requested to consider issuing similar guidelines, along with templates for disclosure at various levels, for better implementation of suo motu disclosure at State level. Four areas have been identified for development of templates viz. public distribution system, Panchayats, MGNREGA and primary and secondary Schools.

The act casts an obligation on public authorities for suo-motu disclosure/publication of large amount of information. It shall be a constant endeavour of every public authority to take steps for providing as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have to minimally resort to the use of this Act to obtain information. It also requires the public authorities to supply information called for by any citizen and to permit him to inspect the documents and collect samples of various works.

During the year 2011-12, Central Information Commission received 33,922 appeals/complaints and disposed of the year 23,112. The figure of appeals/complaints received and disposed of for 2010-11 are 28875 and 24071 and for 2009-10 are 22800 and 19482 respectively.