The Financial Express
Safeguarding RTI
India was the 48th country in the world to enforce the right to information or freedom of information as a statute, through The Right to Information Act, 2005.
India was the 48th country in the world to enforce the right to information or freedom of information as a statute, through The Right to Information Act, 2005. Came into effect from June 15, 2005, this RTI Act empowers citizens to access information available with the 'public authority', as defined in the Act.
The Act brings transparency and accountability in the functioning of public authorities. Its enactment was a significant step in enhancing the standards of corporate governance in CPSEs. The RTI Act defines and re-defines the scope of governance, role and responsibility of the public authority.
Ten years have passed since the enactment of the Act, but full awareness regarding the disclosure of a particular information or its denial is still lacking with public authorities. Considerable administrative time is wasted in this confusion.
Scope, as the apex body of public sector enterprises, had taken many initiatives on RTI, including constituting a steering committee on RTI to discuss concerns of CPSEs and guide them in implementing the Act. Scope also conducted national workshops and interactive sessions on the Act. A dominant view is that RTI is often abused by vested interests and habitual information seekers, which affect the overall productivity of the enterprises.
As the government is reportedly thinking of revisiting the Act, some concerns of CPSEs may be considered.
Since considerable efforts go into the provision of information, it is only fair that the CPSEs also should have the right to know the identity of the persons seeking the information, the motive and the personal interest, if any, which may sometimes be prejudicial to the interests of the company.
Also, a PSU must also have the same privileges in seeking information from a private sector enterprise so that it creates a level-playing field. Such a level-playing field between government and non-government sectors rests on the principle of equity,especially when the listed private player or NGO is holding public money through shareholders and financial institutions.
Sometimes, all the efforts and administrative time put in by the CPSE becomes futile when the information is returned because of wrong address given by the applicant. The number of frivolous and vexatious applications are increasing by the day. Hence, frivolous and vexatious applications need to be tackled properly under the Act.
Habitual information seekers who file applications to meet their vested interest must be dealt with separately and there should be penalties for seeking irrelevant queries, particularly with ill-motives.
Similarly, clarity is required on the information sharable. Also, any guidelines issued by the government should be clear and complete.
A department of personnel and training (DOPT) circular dated 15.4.2013 envisages disclosure of information related to public-private partnership (PPP) by the public authority. But this is not under the ambit of the RTI Act.
As per this circular, all the private and public authorities need to be audited by third parties every year and the report uploaded on their respective websites. But the guidelines for the audit are yet to be framed and published by the DoPT.
Finally, there is a need for capacity building by enhancing the number of trained manpower both in the institution of Chief Information Commission (CIC) and CPSEs to tackle the large number of queries.
The author is director general, Standing Conference of Public Enterprises
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Posted by: Lokesh Batra <batra_lokesh@yahoo.com>
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