Times of
India: Vijayawada: Tuesday, September 10, 2019.
In
a span of just three months, state information commissioners have cleared a
record number of pending applications. The three commissioners and one
in-charge commissioner cleared 2,435 applications out of 6,392 that they
received. There are still 3,957 applications pending clearance.
The
RTI Act was active before the state’s bifurcation. But after bifurcation,
particularly after the shifting of capital from Hyderabad, it became weak, as
the officials claimed information was not available in Amaravati as most of it
was still in Hyderabad. Added to this, the government did not appoint any
information commissioners till October 2018, leading to a major gap in the
functioning of the body.
“As
per RTI Act, government information, whenever it is sought by people, must be
given to them. The governments these days are transparent and hence
dissemination of information as requested by people helps in giving a positive
image to the government,” said M Ravi Kumar, chief information commissioner
(in-charge).
Information
commissioner Ilapuram Raja added that people sometimes seek information on
personal issues and issues concerning the society in general. “Most of these
applications are cleared at the level of the public information officers (PIOs)
of the respective departments. If, by any reason, the application seeking information
is not cleared by the PIOs, the responsibility will go to the first appellate
authority (FAA), who has to reply to the applicant. If the applicant fails to
get a reply, then the applicant can approach the commissioners,” he said.
Due
to the delay in the appointment of commissioners and the subsequent elections,
officials in various government departments could not attend to this work,
further piling up the applications. However, now with the government machinery
settling down to work, the commissioners are planning to visit the districts to
sensitize officials and the departments to clear the pending applications at
their level.
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