Digital publication under RTI Act, Information can be presented in powerful visual ways using visualisation techniques

Rising Kashmir: Srinagar: Monday, January 29, 2018.

Every public authority shall maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to Information under this Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerised are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country.

It is connected on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of the Act.

As the Supreme Court regarding the Act said:“The right to Information is a cherished right. Information and right to Information are intended to be formidable tools in the hands of responsible citizens to fight corruption and to bring in transparency and accountability. The provisions of Rti Act should be enforced strictly and all efforts should be made to bring to light the necessary information under clause (b) of Section 4(1) of the Act, which relates to securing transparency and accountability in the working of public authorities and in discouraging corruption.”

Since the Jammu Kashmir RTI Act was introduced in 2009, the activists are companying for the quality and quantity of proactive disclosure but in the most corrupted state,the Government is not interested for implementation of Section 4 up to the desired level.

Section 4 lays down that information should be provided through many mediums depending upon the level of the public authority.

While Department of information Technology and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, the following principles additionally should also be kept in view to ensure the websites’ disclosures are complete, easily accessible, technology and platform neutral and in a form which conveys the desired information in an effective and user-friendly manner.

It should be the endeavour of all public authorities that all entitlements to citizens and all transactions between the citizens and government are gradually made available through computer based interface.

Websites should contain detailed information from point of organ to the point of delivery of entitlements /services provided by the public authorities to citizens. Orders of the public authority should be uploaded on the website immediately after they have been issued.

Information must be presented from user’s perspective, which may require rearranging and simplifying it.

Website should contain all the relevant acts, forms and other documents which are normally accessed by citizens. Websites should have detailed directory of key contacts, details of officials of the public authority. It is obligatory for every public authority to proactively disclose details in respect of the information, available to or held by it reduced in an electronic form.

The website should therefore indicate which digitally held information is made available publicly over the Internet.

As department reorganise their systems and process to enable themselves for electronic service delivery, it is recommended that the requirement of bringing due transparency as provided in the RTI Act is given adequate consideration at the design stage itself.

To maintain reliability of information and it’s real time updation, information generation in a digital form should be automatically updated on the basis of key work outputs, like a muster roll and slay slip.

Information must be presented from user’s perspective, which may require rearranging and simplifying it.

Information and data should be presented in open data formats whereby it can be pulled by different application protocol interfaces to be used in different fashions more appropriate to specific contexts and needs.

Information/data can, for instance, be presented in powerful visual ways using visualisation techniques. Such visual representation of information /data can give insights that may remain largely hidden in a textual or tabular presentation of data.

In some contexts, pictures, audio/videos recordings etc may be useful. All such different media and forms should be used for proactive disclosure. Every webpage displaying information or data proactively disclosed under RTI Act should, on the top right corner, display the mandatory field’ Date last updated. Such an approach will lead to automation of proactive disclosure.