CIC tells officers to promptly respond to RTI queries
RTI Commissioners Desham Bhupal, B Ayodhya Reddy, PV Srinivas Rao, Mohsin Parveen, Merla Vaishnavi visited Medak district and held a meeting with officials on Tuesday.
State Chief Information Commissioner Chandrasekhar Reddy said that the RTI Act was implemented with the aim of ensuring that the public information officers should have complete understanding of the act, implementation of government schemes, utilization of funds and eradication of corruption.
He said that the public information officers should develop a comprehensive understanding by reading the sections and subsections thoroughly. It is commendable that there are no cases in 15 of the 29 government departments in the state. 18,000 cases were pending with the Right to Information Act Commission in the state due to the fact that the information was not made available to the public in the last ten years. He said that people should provide information within 30 days of applying for information and that citizen charter boards should be set up at every government office. RTI Act applications should not be rejected without giving reasonable reasons. Since the Right to Information Act is available, everyone should take responsibility and provide information to the public as soon as possible, Reddy said.
The RTI Chief Commissioner said that the Commission will resolve all pending cases in August and move forward with new applications. Steps have been taken to completely resolve the cases of 30 departments in two months and there should be zero cases. He said that 11 districts have been selected and awareness among the public information officers through the Right to Information Act has been raised and that the sections of the act are being explained in full. He said that they should come forward to provide information to everyone. He said that 17 departments out of 22 districts will show solutions to all the cases by next March and provide information. He said that the awareness conference will be very useful in bringing the hidden system forward with new enthusiasm and increasing accountability to the people.
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