Times of India: Bhopal: Friday,
April 25, 2014.
Grappling
with a backlog of appeals and complaints running in several thousands, Lok
Sabha elections have further hit work at MP state information commission. For,
a large number of officials of the commission are busy with election duty.
The
commission doesn't appear to be on a priority list of the state government as
the government has yet to provide staff, which was approved for it by the
cabinet in March.
The
commission did not function for almost two years as the post of chief
information commissioner was vacant along with information commissioners.
Ultimately,
when appointments were made after a court order, huge backlog of 14,335 appeals
and 1,879 complaints welcomed the new CIC and his colleagues.
However, K D
Khan, chief information commissioner, told TOI, "Work has begun and we
hope to clear the pendency in a year."
Most of RTI
appeals are filed against panchayat and rural development, urban administration
and development and municipal corporations.
The appeals
are related to health, education and sanitation among others. Speaking to TOI,
commission secretary Parag Karkare said, "There were no commissioners for
long. Now we are trying our best to dispose of the pending cases at the
earliest.
The state
commission will be soon launching an online RTI website that will allow people
to know about status of their applications, filing the appeal online and
receiving an SMS as soon as the appeal gets registered."
The website
will be developed by Centre for Good Governance (CGG), Hyderabad of Andhra
Pradesh Government.For now the State Information Commission has started disposing
the pending cases through lok adalats, with noticed issued in 1,240 cases and
more than 100 cases disposed of.
The
commission has decided to follow the same in Jabalpur and Gwalior on June 28
and August 2, respectively for speedy disposal of second appeals.
But RTI
activists are not happy with lok adalats. In the first lok adalat, the state
government did not cooperate. As a result, only 150 cases could be resolved
against a target 1,247.
It has been
nine years, but the commission has failed to adopt e-culture and introduce
e-governance," he said.
Talking to
TOI, RTI activist Rolly Shivhare said, "The commission should be more
systematic with lok adalats with proper management of departments to avoid
chaotic situation."
There were no
commissioners for long. Now we are trying our best to dispose the pending cases
at the earliest.
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