COUNTERVIEW: Ahmedabad: Saturday, February 10, 2018.
Minister of
State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh has admitted
in the Rajya Sabha that the Government of India has “no mechanism” to monitor
compliance with its own transparency directive, requiring each ministry and
department to submit monthly report to the Cabinet Secretariat on proactive
disclosures to be made under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.
Singh said
this in reply to an unstarred query regarding the April 2016 Central
Information Commission (CIC) directive to the Cabinet Secretariat to upload
monthly reports of work done by all Ministries and Departments on their
respective websites. Two months later, the Cabinet Secretariat issued a
circular to all Central Ministries and Departments requiring them to upload the
monthly reports.
Meanwhile,
the Delhi-based advocacy group Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI),
which works on RTI issues, has said that its “quick website check” of 52
Central Ministries and as many Departments reveals that only 13% of the
Ministries and 5.7% of 52 Departments are compliant with the transparency
directive by publishing monthly reports up to December 2017.
If the
Ministries and Departments that have their own websites are counted, the
compliance rate for Ministries goes up to 14.89% and 6.5%, respectively, says
CHRI’s Venkatesh Nayak in a report based on the quick check.
Nayak says,
“Having uploaded all monthly reports up to January 2018, the Ministry of
Environment and Forests and Climate Change is the only entity to comply fully
with the transparency directive.”
He adds,
“Three Ministries, Civil Aviation, Coal and Petroleum and Natural Gas have
published monthly reports up to December 2017”, while the Ministry of Finance
has published monthly reports “up to November 2017.”
Nayak further
reveals, “The Ministry of Home Affairs is also reasonably compliant with the
transparency directive having uploaded reports up to December 2017”, though
adding, “Monthly reports for May and July 2017 are missing from its website.”
According to
Nayak the Ministry of Mines “seems to have stopped publishing monthly reports
after February 2017”, while the Ministry for Rural Development appears to have
“stopped this practice after July 2016.
Coming to
departments, Nayak says, “The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and
of Food and Public Distribution have uploaded all monthly reports up to
December 2017.
Also, he
says, “The Department of Justice has published all reports for the calendar
year of 2017 but seems to have removed reports of previous months.”
However,
Nayak regrets, the “Department of Investment and Public Asset Management has
published only bullet pointed information for each month.”
Similarly, he
says, “the monthly reports of the Department of Pharmaceuticals are published
intermittently”, while, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public
Grievances “stopped publishing monthly reports after January 2017.”
Comments
Nayak, “Section 25(1)(c) of the RTI Act obligates the Central government to
require all public authorities under its control to publish accurate
information about their activities from time to time. This is a statutory
mandate. However, the evidence indicates a deficit of both political and
bureaucratic will to ensure compliance with this transparency requirement.”
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