Gujarat govt institute "fails" to train officials into RTI rules, babus ignorant of mode of payment to file plea

MAGP's RTI campaign

By Pankti Jog*
Manojbhai Patel filed a right to information (RTI) plea with the district collector's office, Ahmedabad, by pasting a revenue stamp worth Rs 20 on July 7, 2015.He was surprise to receive a letter from the Public Information Officer (PIO) saying that his application could not be considered, as he had not paid the fee of Rs 20 by non-judicial stamp.
The letter reached Manojbhai on August 4, 2015. The PIO is also the secretary to the collector.
The Gujarat state assembly passed new rules for RTI on March 22, 2010, which included various modes for payment for RTI application, including cash, judicial stamp paper, non-judicial stamp, non-judicial stamp paper, franking, electronic stamping, demand draft, pay order, postal order, court fee stamp, revenue stamp, challan, revenue stamp, and judicial stamp paper.
Gujarat has the highest – 12 choices – for citizens for paying for RTI pleas, which makes procedure of filing application easy and hassle free.
These rules have been published in the form of a booklet by the state-controlled Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration (SPIPA), Ahmedabad, and an annual report of the institute claims that training of the officials handling RTI has been carried out, and all of them have got one booklet each.
Manojbhai, after receiving the reply, filed a complaint with the information commissioner, Gujarat. The commissioner passed an order, without conducting hearing, on September 9, 2015. The order quotes the Gujarat RTI rules, saying revenue stamp is allowed as a mode of payment, hence the PIO order of rejecting RTI application of Manojbhai is invalid. The PIO was directed to proceed as per the law.
The commissioner's order, interestingly, does not take serious note of the fact that the PIO, who is also senior official in the district collectorate of Ahmedabad, is ignorant of the Gujarat RTI rules of 2010, which are five years old.
Manojbhai is still to get information from the PIO. He doubts the intention of the PIO to furnish information, and thinks that the PIO would apply all available tactics to delay information.
Under the RTI Act, any citizen is eligible to access to information held by any public authority within 30 days. While the “demand side” of the law (citizens, public) is aware of the Act, and people file requests with proper fees following necessary procedures, the “supply side” still does not seem to have been trained personnel for implementing the Act. This is a major lacuna in access to information in Gujarat.
In Gujarat the responsibility for training government officials rests with SPIPA, which is supposed to train bureaucrats, system officials and employees on various governance issues. A plan is in existence, which envisages creation of a cadre of RTI master trainers, who would train other officials into implementing the Act at the local level. Several master trainers have been trained.
For reasons not known, however, the RTI master trainers have not conducted any training at district and block level. Hence, all RTI training is restricted to SPIPA and its regional training centres. As SPIPA gives all types of training, RTI is not its priority.
As there is staff deficit, officials are not nominated for training into RTI. Hence, even 10 years later, we are still left with huge number of employees and officials who are ignorant of the provisions of the law, and citizens have to break their heads and suffer.
Often official approach the RTI helpline run by NGO Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) for guidance, as there is no official mechanism – a helpline or a help desk – which the PIOs and appellate authorities could approach to solve RTI issues.
The Government of India has been urging states to send proposals to run helplines, and also innovative projects for improving the implementation of the RTI Act. However, Gujarat has kept itself away from showing up its good practices in RTI.
At a recent RTI meet at the Kochrab Ashram, founded by Mahatma Gandhi in Ahmedabad before he shifted to the present Sabarmati Ashram location, activists and citizens demanded that government should improve implementation of the RTI Act.
There was a strong voice: If this did not happen, citizens would start a state-wide movement exposing the government’s hidden motive of “hiding facts from citizens” while talking loud about governance model, e-governance and transparent government.
–-
*With Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel, Ahmedabad

Comments

rajesh ji said…

RTI act के तहत वाराणसी के सांसद से जनहित में माँगी गयी जानकारी रेलवे बोर्ड से लंबित क्यू ?

विषय – १९५६ में जब आम लोगों की ज़मीन अधिगृहीत करके डीजल रेल इंजन कारखाना, वाराणसी की स्थापना की गयी थी तो उस समय आम लोगों को क्या-क्या सुविधा दी गयी थी?

October 16, 2015

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Refugees as criminals? US govt report blames Amit Shah for calling Bangladeshis termites

Counterview Desk
The chapter “Freedom of Movement” of the US State Department’s “India 2018 Human Rights Report”, released recently, has criticized BJP chief Amit Shah for terming alleged Bangladeshis who may be in Assam as “termites”, because their names were struck down from the list of National Register of Citizens, under preparation in the state.
Pointing out that four million residents were excluded from Assam’s final draft list, leading to “uncertainty over the status of these individuals, many of whose families had lived in the state for several generations”, the report regrets, the Indian law does not even contain the term “refugee,” treating refugees like Rohingiyas as “any other foreigners.”
“Undocumented physical presence in the country is a criminal offense. Persons without documentation were vulnerable to forced returns and abuse”, the report says.
Text of the Freedom of Movement chapter: The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, a…

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

India, Pakistan told to eliminate nuclear weapons: N-war "would kill" 2 billion

Counterview Desk
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a non-partisan federation of national medical organizations in 64 countries, representing tens of thousands of doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned citizens, claiming to share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world freed from the threat of nuclear annihilation, has warned that “an unprecedented global catastrophe” awaits the globe against the backdrop of warmongering in India and Pakistan.

Counterview

Search This Blog