State Chief Information Commissioner Jannat Hussain on Saturday expressed confidence that the proper implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act would eliminate corruption from the society besides ensuring transparency in public administration.
Addressing a seminar on “RTI ACT-Success Stories” at Jubilee Hall, Jannat Hussain said that the RTI activists and NGOs have created lot of awareness in the society through the RTI. He said that several newspapers have been carrying investigative stories based on the information procured through RTI. However, he said that the implementation of RTI should be more vigorous.
Jannat Hussain said that the number of applications received by the Commission have increased from 8864 in 2006 to 1,22,133 for the year 2011. The increase over 2006 is 1377 per cent. Describing these statistics as the success of awareness, he said that the information provided against RTI requests has been around 95 to 97 per cent over the years. He also assured that the Commission was trying to bring down the pendency of cases to three months by 2013.
The CIC also informed that the Commission was working on a software which facilitates registration of RTI requests, generation the registered number and triggering an automatic e-mail to the appellant. Besides, the status of the case will also be displayed in the website. The idea behind the technological infusion is to make the Commission easily accessible and respond in real time.
State Information Commissioner S Prabhakar Reddy described the RTI as a unique Act that empowers the people to access information from the government. He said that there was a paradigm shift in public accountability due to the Act in the last years. However, he expressed regrets over the pathetic implementation of RTI in the Education Department.
SIC C Madhukar Raju informed that over 11,000 RTI requests were pending with the Commission. Of 11,200 pending cases, 2,891 belongs to Revenue department, 1,144 to Municipal Administration and Urban Development, 1,157 cases to Education department and 1,016 pending cases to police department.
State Information Commissioner P Vijaya Babu and Secretary of State Information Commission B V Sudhakar also addressed the seminar.
–Agencies