‘Government departments fail to comply with RTI Act’

At a time when Union Administration is stressing on transparency, majority of government departments in Jammu and Kashmir are brazenly flouting the obligatory norm of proactively disclosing information as per the Right to Information Act 2005.

Aggrieved citizens said that the J&K government has failed to crack whip on its departments for failing to update information on their websites.

   

“The government departments in J&K are yet to develop a work culture of updating official records on their websites, despite the UT government pumping huge money in e-governance projects,” said an official, adding that in today’s era, official websites of government departments are lacking updated information which is against the policy of information disclosure.

As per the officials, the government departments such as Commerce and Industries, Public Service Commission, Service Selection Board, Public Health Engineering, Irrigation and Flood Control department, Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Geology and Mining, Handloom, Horticulture, Transport, Tourism, JKPCC, JKPDC, Directorate of Health Services and others have failed to proactively disclose updated information under the RTI Act.

The RTI Act clearly mentions under Section 4 (1) (b) that the public authorities are “under obligation” to make proactive disclosures of information which includes details about works undertaken, funds allocated, details of employees and others. However, there is no implementation of the Act as most of the government departments have failed to make proactive disclosure of information.

The callousness of the government departments in disclosing information has irked RTI activists, who accuse the some officials of deliberating hiding information.

“It is obligatory for public authorities to make proactive information disclosure under the Act,” said Raja Muzafar, a RTI activist.

“But till date not a single department in J&K has fully adhered to this guideline. We had earlier filed RTI in GAD to know the status of section 4(1) (b) implementation in various Government departments and it was shocking to know that Public Information Officers (PIOs) and concerned HODs of various departments are not at all familiar with this important section of state RTI Act,” he added.

“Departments like J&K Public Service Commission, Service Selection Board, Directorate of School Education, Geology and Mining, Handloom, Horticulture, Transport, Tourism and Culture and Information Technology have written unsatisfactory replies to our RTI applications for pro-active disclosures. PIOs of these departments gave vague and irrelevant replies. One department was ignorant enough to admit that they don’t understand what proactive disclosure means,” he said.

He added that he had taken up the matter with Lieutenant Governor ManojSinha on 18 January, this year.

“Subsequently, on 21 January issued directions to all government departments to adhere to the provisions of Section 4 (1) (b) by or before 18 February 2020. But majority of the departments have failed so far,” he said.

The failure by authorities to disclose the information proactively is also resulting in multiplicity of RTI applications wherein applicants seek information which otherwise must have been available in public domain.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

19 − 16 =