Delhi govt gets RTI friendly

Asks its departments to prominently display the information related to Right to Information Act in their offices for public convenience

Delhi govt gets RTI friendly

Asks its departments to prominently display the information related to Right to Information Act in their offices for public convenience

The Delhi government has asked all its departments to prominently display the Right to Information logo and other related information in their offices.

In a letter written by Delhi government administrative department to all the heads of its 100 odd departments, head of the local civic bodies and other autonomous bodies, it was said that the publicity to RTI logo and other related information was necessary so that people did not face any difficulty in finding the nodal officers for filing their RTI appeals.u00a0

"Often it has been found that people visiting government offices complain that the staff there was unsupportive and they were not provided with proper information about the nodal officers. The idea in displaying the logo and names of nodal officers prominently is to prevent such complains and also fix the responsibility if someone violates the rules," said a senior Delhi government official.

The letter written by Principal Secretary, administrative reforms department, Delhi Government, Arvind Ray also stated that RTI logo be printed on all the important government stationery to popularise it.

The Delhi government letter comes after a January communiqu ufffd from the Central Government to Delhi Chief Secretary, Rakesh Mehta to take adequate measures to popularise Right to Information Act among the government departments and general public at large.

"To make it more user friendly, we have also asked all the stakeholders to send us feedback so that it becomes more effective and if need be remedial measures are taken," said a government official.

15,000 appeals under RTI pending
More than 15,000 appeals under the Right to Information Act (RTI) are pending with the Central Information Commission (CIC). The Centre informed Rajya Sabha that average monthly receipt and disposal of appeals by the CIC was 2,300 and 1,965, respectively, during January to December, 2010.

Delaying tactics
Last year, Delhi government had asked its officials to refrain from repeatedly transferring RTI applications and warned that non-compliance of the same would result in "heavy penalty". It was observed that RTI applications were being transferred from one official to another which was making it difficult to fix the responsibility of the erring official in case information was not provided within 30 days as mandated under the transparency law.
According to transparency law, if an official does not provide information to an applicant within 30 days, he or she may be fined at the rate of Rs 250 per day from the time the information became due to the time it was provided subject to maximum of Rs 25,000.