Times
of India: Bhopal: Saturday, 18 April 2015.
Three days
after Comptroller and Audit General (CAG) Shashi Kant Sharma directed social
audits on NGOs and panchayat bodies directly funded by the government, state
information commission has ordered all state government-funded NGOs to come
under the ambit of RTI Act. The order also hauls up principal secretary, general
administration department (GAD) K Suresh, for failing to implement provisions
of RTI Act.
The order has
been sent to collector, commissioner, CEOs and commissioner of municipal
corporation of Jabalpur division along with GAD to submit a status report by
May 20 when the final hearing of the case will take place.
The order was
passed by information commissioner Heeralal Trivedi a few days ago on a
complaint by RTI activist Ajay Dubey under section 18 of RTI Act over
non-compliance of RTI Act by state-funded NGOs.
Even though
cognizance was taken after it was given to the commission on April 2014, the
order was released three days ago.
The order
states transparency and accountability should be maintained by NGOs which
receive annual funding of Rs 50,000 and above by government. NGOs must come
under section 4 (1) (b) of RTI Act, 2005, which demands proactive disclosure of
information by an organization.
Speaking to
TOI, RTI activist Ajay Dubey said, "It's the duty of GAD to bring these
government-funded NGOs under purview of RTI Act because law demands them to do
it. The government departments who fund these NGOs are very much responsible
for the same as they should know if NGOs they are funding are covered under
RTI. These NGO mafias are protected because they are prime authorities belong
to political bodies. We don't know about directors of NGOs, which sector are
they looking after, where is their infrastructure and how much are they funded?
Everything thing is hidden under paper work. GAD has never been interested in
revealing information about these NGOs nor showed interest in bringing them
under transparency tool of RTI."
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