Business Standard: New
Delhi: Monday, April 07, 2014.
The United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre lists the Right to
Information (RTI) Act - enacted in 2005 - among its foremost contributions
during a decade in power. While Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi insists
the Act brought transparency into governance, Congressmen say it has become the
party's bane.
The
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, an international non-governmental
organisation that works for human rights, estimates four million RTI
applications were filed across the country in 2011-12. A majority of these,
33.8 per cent, were filed in Maharashtra, followed by 32.5 per cent with the
central government. Armed with a right to seek information from public
authorities, citizens have been using it to expose corruption and
misgovernance. Prominent scams unearthed through the RTI include the Adarsh
Housing scam in Mumbai and the mismanagement of finances during the
Commonwealth Games held in Delhi.
Venkatesh
Nayak from the Access to Information Programme of the Commonwealth Human Rights
Initiative in New Delhi, said, "Even in the ninth year of its
implementation, the RTI has not realised its potential. As far as imbibing the
values of transparency in governance and responsibility of citizens are
concerned, these areas need to be developed."
Even the
government did not realise the extent to which the RTI could be used to demand
accountability, he added.
So, when the
Central Information Commission ruled that the six national political parties
were covered by the RTI, the Congress-led UPA government moved the Right to
Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013, to curtail it. But the controversy it
generated forced Members of Parliament (MPs) to send the Bill to a
parliamentary standing committee.
The main
obstacle to the RTI fulfilling its potential are bureaucrats who still treat it
as a burden and provide information on a need-to-know basis. Nayak emphasises
the right must be viewed holistically as a provider of information,
supplemented by digitisation of records and routine disclosures. Transparency
in governance also entails administrative reforms the authorities are reluctant
to undertake.
The
ineffectiveness of information commissions is another factor hampering the RTI.
Activists have been opposing the government's practice of appointing retired
bureaucrats as information commissioners. Those who spent their professional
lives opposing disclosure of information are unlikely to be votaries for access
to information, activists claim.
The UPA has
also failed to implement the awareness activities it was required to undertake
in the countryside, thereby restricting the Act's impact to cities. Maharashtra
and Karnataka lead in the number of RTI applications filed mainly because these
states enacted their own laws much before the central legislation. Again,
several state governments appoint favourably disposed information commissioners
and the commissions themselves are poorly staffed.
As the band
of dedicated RTI activists grows, several have become targets. Approximately
250 activists have been killed in the past nine years. This group is keenly
awaiting presidential assent for the much-needed Whistleblowers Protection Act,
2011. Taking the right to information campaign a step further, organisations
like the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative are working with the Comptroller
and Auditor General, on social audit of public authorities. Politicians who
have been attacking the CAG for its zeal in unearthing scams like those over
selling air waves to telecom companies and allocation of coal blocks, could
face a formidable challenge if ordinary citizens armed with the RTI were to aid
the auditor.
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