Aruna Chhaba, Subodh Shukla & Sonal Kalra, National Informatics Centre, Government of India
Thanks to the sustained grassroots campaign and political will on the part of the Government, the long awaited Right to Information Act, 2005 that got the ratification of both the Houses of Parliament on May 12, has become effective from October 12 this year.
The new legislation is a radical improvement on the relatively weak statute it seeks to replace, the Freedom of Information Act, 2002. It unequivocally confers on all citizens the right to access information and, correspondingly, makes the dissemination of such information an obligation for all public authorities.
It is quoted in the preamble of the Act that "it provides for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, the constitution of a Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters connected therewith o r incidental thereto".
Enactment of the legislation has made India one of the 55 countries that have comprehensive laws to protect the citizens right to information. The Right to Information Act is in line with the tenets of democracy and also a suitable response to the relentless efforts and mass mobilization in favor of a comprehensive Central Act providing access to information regime.
Problem of less transparency in present system of Information Dissemination
The Supreme Court of India has, from time to time, interpreted Article 19 of the Constitution, which upholds the right to freedom of speech and expression, to implicitly include the right to receive and impart information. This has resulted in establishment of the fact that the citizens right to know is embedde d in the Constitutional provisions guaranteeing fundamental rights.
Despite this, transparency in the Indian system of governance has not been up to the desirable level till now. Several factors have contributed to this situation. Traditionally, there has been a pervasive culture of secrecy in the bureaucracy that is compounded by some provisions of the Officials Secret Act. Moreover, low levels of literacy and lack of awareness amongst the general masses restrict information flow in India. Absence of reliable and effective communication tools for storage and dissemination of information is also an encumbrance in the free flow of information. In many government departments, the standard of record keeping is not up to the mark. Access to information is thus denied in many cases on the pretext that record is either irretrievable or misplaced.
Right to Information for greater transparency
The Right to Information and Open Government are considered to be two of the most important and imperative attributes of liberal democratic countries. There has been an almost indomitable global trend in the recent years towards recognition of the right to information by countries, non-governmental organisations, civil societies and the common masses. Nine Indian states namely, Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Goa, and Madhya Pradesh already have laws on the right to information to show their commitment for building a dynamic and prosperous society by involving the people in governance and decision making process.
It has been realized by most of the countries through experience that greater access of the citizens to information enhances the responsiveness of government to community needs. In turn, this facili tates speedy redressal of public grievances and thus improves feeling of goodwill towards the government. On the other hand, restrictions on the free flow of information results in feeling of powerlessness and alienation among the citizens. Concealing information makes the government machinery less accountable and therefore more prone to misuse of power.
Salient Features of the Act
The Right to Information Act has a comprehensive reach and covers a wide spectrum of bodies like:
Central government, the State governments
Panchayati Raj institutions & Local Bodies
Bodies that are established, constituted, owned, controlled or substantially financed by the government including non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
Even private bodies will have to impart such information that the citizens ought to know.
An outstanding feature of the Right to Information Act, 2005 is the provision for constitution of Information Commissions, which would be independent high level bodies at both the Central and State level. The commissions will be responsible for encouraging the citizens right to know and for enforcing the provisions of the Act. A committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister has constituted the Central Information Commission. The Commission consists of a Chief Information Commissioner as head and several Central Information Commissioners (CICs).
A similar setup shall exist at the state level. By empowering these Commissions to act as appellate authorities and by vesting them with the powers of a civil court, these bodies have bee n given the teeth to discourage public authorities from refusing to part with information. The provisions of the Act require authorities to respond to queries within 30 days or in as little as 48 hours, if it is a matter of life and liberty.
The Act gives a comprehensive definition of information and explicitly states that "information" means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models and data material held in any electronic form. The definition also includes "information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law".
This provision increases the accountability for a private body and puts the onus on the government to collect information from them, rather than requiring the public to chase pr ivate bodies themselves.
The Act has a progressive approach and calls for implementation of ICT in order to efficiently store and disseminate information. It has been emphatically stated in the Act that, "All public authorities 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 computerized are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerized and connected through a network all over the country on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated."
The Act has an interesting variation as it asks for proactive disclosure of information from public authorities. The Act says that "it shall be a constant endeavour of every public authority
to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information."
Winding up
The passing of the Right to Information Act has been welcomed from all quarters of the society as it is a significant step towards establishing a regime that guarantees citizens right to know. In addition to providing the right to information to the citizens, the Act also establishes that the state must be equipped with adequate apparatus so that easy and inexpensive access to information is provided. Provisions of the Act that assign specific time limit for providing the information sought and serious penalties for non-compliance would go a long way in increasing transparency and accountability in the government departments.
Role of NIC in implementation of Right to Information Act - 2005
In the capacity of Right to Information Act implementation agency, Ministry of Personnel approached NIC for providing necessary ICT support for its implementation. Director General (NIC) agreed to provide the support, and gave a presentation on proposed action plan in the conference of Chief Secretaries organized by Ministry of Personnel in September 2005.
The scope of ICT support would include:
Setting up of a specialized website (http://rti.gov.in) for centralized repository of proactive disclosure of documents of various Public Authorities under Central & State Governments.
Development of Portal Service for uploading of the documents by the concerned Public Authorities
Directory Service of Public Authorities, Public Information Officers, Appellate Authorities, Chief Information Commissions etc.
User friendly mechanism for search and access of information by citizens round the clock
Work flow application for on-line submission of requests for informatio n/ appeals/ complaints and their follow-up
Workflow application for Monitoring of status of requests, appeals, complaints etc.
Repository of the requests that have already been answered in a way that is searchable by the citizens.
The schematic diagram of information flow in the Right to Information portal
Present status of computerization
A team of NIC officials from Headquarters and Karnataka State Centre has been formed for development of centralized system as per the scope mentioned above.
At present, web site http://rti.gov.in has been created, and RTI portal has been designed, developed and implemented for uploading of proactive disclosures by various central and State Government Departments. HODs / SIOs have already initiated actions for uploading the documents. Necessary links have been provided to those web sites, where they are already available. As on 20th October 2005, more than 300 departments have uploaded their documents.
Repository of Public Information Officers of various Departments has also been built, to help the citizens to approa ch them for request for information
Karnataka center has developed system for maintaining database of Public Authorities and processing of requests for information in consultation with Nodal office of DARPG in Bangalore.
For more information, mail to
chhaba@nic.in
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