Aruna Roy blasts PM for RTI remark
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOINEW/navigator.asp?Daily=TOIBG&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&AW=1318760027548
Panaji: Transparency advocate Aruna Roy on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement saying that the Right To Information Act was adversely affecting deliberations in the government and deterring honest officials from expressing their views on file.
"The Prime Minister has made a statement that I completely disagree with. My seven-year period in government was fraught with corruption," said Roy, considered by many as one of the architects of the RTI Act. The founder member of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), who resigned from the IAS in 1974, was speaking at a seminar on 'Strengthening participatory democracy: Role of RTI' at the International Centre Goa, Dona Paula.
Countering the PM's reasons for bureaucratic inefficiency, the Magsaysay award winner said the killings of RTI activists was of more concern than the RTI affecting government functioning. "I'm much more concerned about the lives of RTI activists being killed. What have you done to protect our lives?" she sought to know from the PM. Stating that even earlier, bureaucrats were not making file notings, Roy said, "No one wanted to take the onus (to make a noting) if it was a critical issue."
Stating that transparency benefits the system, Roy said, "We reject the suggestion that transparency makes bureaucrats inefficient. The government has always been inefficient. Papers accessed by us through RTI have proved this."
She said that transparency actually helps honest bureaucrats and felt that due to RTI, clean babus can make notings in the confidence that disclosure of the file notings under RTI would vindicate the stands they take.
"In the last six years, information received by the people has created upheaval in governance. What has upset the system is the scams. Instead of welcoming transparency, the persist ence for amendments is wrong," she added.
Amendment to law opposed
Panaji: Nikhil Dey, co-convener of National Campaign for People's Right to Information, too, was critical of the proposal for RTI amendments. "We completely oppose amendments in RTI. The Prime Minister is saying the RTI affects bureaucratic functioning, but it is the opposite. It is a great benefit for honest officers as earlier their notings were being hidden."
Amendment to law opposed
Panaji: Nikhil Dey, co-convener of National Campaign for People's Right to Information, too, was critical of the proposal for RTI amendments. "We completely oppose amendments in RTI. The Prime Minister is saying the RTI affects bureaucratic functioning, but it is the opposite. It is a great benefit for honest officers as earlier their notings were being hidden."
"The government has consistently said that amendments will be done only after putting them in the public domain. It should not slip in amendments like it did the first time," Dey added.
Roy also lambasted the removal of the CBI from the purview of the RTI. "How can the government talk of a Lokpal on one side and remove the CBI from the purview of the RTI?" she wondered. "Eighty percent of cases investigated by the CBI are corruption cases," Roy added.
"The chairman of the Planning Commission has said all public-private-partnerships will also be outside the purview of the RTI. How can this be done when the state provides facilities like electricity and water to these projects?" she asked. TNN
__._,_.___
MARKETPLACE
.
__,_._,___
No comments:
Post a Comment