Skip to main content

RTI: Only 13% of Central Ministries compliant with transparency directive


By Venkatesh Nayak*
To ensure compliance with proactive information disclosure obligations under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act), under Rule 10 of the Rules of Procedure in Regard to the Proceedings of Cabinet, 1987, government ministries/ departments are required to submit reports to the Cabinet Secretariat every month. With the exception of the Ministry of Coal no other Ministry had volunteered to make this information public.
In April 2016, the Central Information Commission (CIC) had issued a recommendation to the Cabinet Secretariat to upload monthly reports of work done by all Ministries and Departments on their respective websites. Within two months of the CIC’s recommendation, the Cabinet Secretariat issued a circular to all Central Ministries and Departmentsrequiring them to upload monthly reports of their major achievements, significant developments and important events. Ever since, Parliament has been asking questions regarding compliance with this circular.

Central Government admits in Parliament, absence of mechanism to monitor its own transparency directive

On 08 February, 2018, Mr. V. Vijaysai Reddy, MP (YSR Congress) of Andhra Pradesh asked the Hon’ble Prime Minister (PM) in the Rajya Sabha about the existence of the CIC’s order, the Cabinet Secretariat’s circular and as to whether the Government has any mechanism to monitor the compliance across Central Ministries and Departments.
In a written reply to the Unstarred Question of the MP, the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (who assists the PM) has once again said that the Government does not have any mechanism to monitor compliance with its own transparency directive
Earlier, in March 2017, the same Minister gave a similar reply to a similar question regarding compliance with the CIC/Cab Sectt.’s directive raised by Mr. Rajesh Ranjan, MP @ Pappu Yadav and Ms. Ranjeet Ranjan, MP (both belonging to Rashtriya Janata Dal) in the Lok Sabha.

Current status of compliance with the transparency directive across Central Ministries and Departments

Anticipating the Central Government’s reply, we we kept ready a quick website check of 52 Central Ministries and 52 Departments under their charge for compliance with the requirement of proactive disclosure of monthly activities and achievements. Our findings about the status of compliance across these 104 entities are given below:
Status of compliance across 52 Central Ministries:
  • Only 13% of the Central Ministries are either fully or reasonably compliant with the transparency directive. Nevertheless, this may be taken as considerable improvement over the compliance rate of 8% that we reported in March 2017 when the issue was raised in the Lok Sabha. If only 47 Ministries that have their own websites are counted, the compliance rate in 2018 goes up to 14.89%;
  • Having uploaded all monthly reports up to January 2018 the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change is the only entity to comply fully with the transparency directive;
  • Three Ministries- Civil Aviation, Coal and Petroleum and Natural Gas have published monthly reports up to December 2017;
  • The Ministry of Finance has published monthly reports up to November 2017 only;
  • The Ministry of Earth Sciences has published monthly reports from January – December 2017. Reports of previous months are not accessible on its website;
  • The Ministry of Home Affairs is also reasonably compliant with the transparency directive having uploaded reports up to December 2017. But monthly reports for May and July 2017 are missing from this section of its website;
  • The Ministry for Textiles has uploaded the monthly report for December 2017 only. Earlier reports which we found during our last round of compliance survey seem to have been taken off the website;
  • While the Ministry of Mines seems to have stopped publishing monthly reports after February 2017, the Ministry for Rural Development seems to have stopped this practice after July 2016. The Ministry for Corporate Affairs has revived its practice of publishing monthly bulletins since November 2017 which had started in April 2015;
  • Five Ministries (Commerce and Industry; Communications; Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution; Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises and Science and Technology) do not have separate websites of their own. Instead they are accessible to the public through the websites of their constituent departments.
Status of compliance across 52 Central Departments: 
  • Less than 6% (5.7%) of the 52 Central Departments are compliant with the transparency directive having published monthly reports up to December 2017. Of the Depts. that have their own websites, only 6.5% (3 of 46) are compliant with the transparency directive; This figure has remained stagnant since we monitored compliance in 2017;
  • Only the Depts. of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and Food and Public Distribution have uploaded all monthly reports up to December 2017. None of them had uploaded the monthly report for January 2018 at the time of this despatch;
  • DoPT deserves credit for displaying the link to monthly reports more prominently on its Home Page than any other Central Ministry or Department;
  • Department of Justice has published all reports for the calendar year of 2017 but seems to have removed reports of previous months;
  • Department of Investment and Public Asset Management has published only bullet pointed information (2-4) for each month. While the report for December 2017 is accessible easily, earlier reports are archived requiring some effort to trace on the website.
  • Similarly, the monthly reports of the Dept. of Pharmaceuticals are published intermittently and require some effort to locate amidst other documents;
  • Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances stopped publishing monthly reports after January 2017;
  • Department of Health and Family Welfare has not been regular with the publication of its monthly reports. They started publishing in August 2016 but did not resume the practice until June 2017. Publication has stopped once again after October 2017;
  • Six Departments (Border Management; Home; Internal Security; J&K Affairs, Social Justice and Empowerment and States) do not have websites of their own but link to their parent Ministry’s website. Five of these Depts. are under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
(This research was put together by John Mascrinaus and Shikha Chhibbar of ATI Programme, CHRI and Geetika Vyas of Symbiosis Law School NOIDA who interned with CHRI.)

Urgent need for establishing a monitoring mechanism

Section 25(1)(c) of the RTI Act obligates the Central Government to require all public authorities under its control to publish accurate information about their activities from time to time. This is a statutory mandate. The CIC/Cab. Sectt.’s transparency directive is the right steps in this direction. However, the evidence indicates a deficit of both political and bureaucratic will to ensure compliance with this transparency requirement. The Central Government has not committed to developing a mechanism to monitor compliance despite being reminded twice in Parliament. Perhaps it is time to move the CIC again to issue a binding direction for establishing such a mechanism under the Cabinet Secretariat or the DoPT.
—
*Programme Coordinator, Access to Information Programme, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.
59 comments
»

Jayanthi Natarajan "never stood by tribals' rights" in MNC Vedanta's move to mine Niyamigiri Hills in Odisha

By A Representative The Odisha Chapter of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), which played a vital role in the struggle for the enactment of historic Forest Rights Act, 2006 has blamed former Union environment minister Jaynaynthi Natarjan for failing to play any vital role to defend the tribals' rights in the forest areas during her tenure under the former UPA government. Countering her recent statement that she rejected environmental clearance to Vendanta, the top UK-based NMC, despite tremendous pressure from her colleagues in Cabinet and huge criticism from industry, and the claim that her decision was “upheld by the Supreme Court”, the CSD said this is simply not true, and actually she "disrespected" FRA.
Post a Comment
»

Stands 'exposed': Cavalier attitude towards rushed construction of Char Dham project

By Bharat Dogra*  The nation heaved a big sigh of relief when the 41 workers trapped in the under-construction Silkyara-Barkot tunnel (Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand) were finally rescued on November 28 after a 17-day rescue effort. All those involved in the rescue effort deserve a big thanks of the entire country. The government deserves appreciation for providing all-round support.
Post a Comment
»

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...
Post a Comment
»

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat*  As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.
Post a Comment
»

Pairing not with law but with perpetrators: Pavlovian response to lynchings in India

By Vikash Narain Rai* Lynch-law owes its name to James Lynch, the legendary Warden of Galway, Ireland, who tried, condemned and executed his own son in 1493 for defrauding and killing strangers. But, today, what kind of a person will justify the lynching for any reason whatsoever? Will perhaps resemble the proverbial ‘wrong man to meet at wrong road at night!’
Post a Comment
»

Celebrating 125 yr old legacy of healthcare work of missionaries

Vilas Shende, director, Mure Memorial Hospital By Moin Qazi* Central India has been one of the most fertile belts for several unique experiments undertaken by missionaries in the field of education and healthcare. The result is a network of several well-known schools, colleges and hospitals that have woven themselves into the social landscape of the region. They have also become a byword for quality and affordable services delivered to all sections of the society. These institutions are characterised by committed and compassionate staff driven by the selfless pursuit of improving the well-being of society. This is the reason why the region has nursed and nurtured so many eminent people who occupy high positions in varied fields across the country as well as beyond. One of the fruits of this legacy is a more than century old iconic hospital that nestles in the heart of Nagpur city. Named as Mure Memorial Hospital after a British warrior who lost his life in a war while defending his cou...
Post a Comment
»

Budget for 2018-19: Ahmedabad authorities "regularly" under-spend allocation

By Mahender Jethmalani* The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC's) General Body (Municipal Board) recently passed the AMC’s annual budget estimates of Rs 6,990 crore for 2018-19. AMC’s revenue expenditure for the next financial year is Rs 3,500 crore and development budget (capital budget) is Rs 3,490 crore.
Post a Comment
»

New RTI draft rules inspired by citizen-unfriendly, overtly bureaucratic approach

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Department of Personnel and Training , Government of India has invited comments on a new set of Draft Rules (available in English only) to implement The Right to Information Act, 2005 . The RTI Rules were last amended in 2012 after a long period of consultation with various stakeholders. The Government’s move to put the draft RTI Rules out for people’s comments and suggestions for change is a welcome continuation of the tradition of public consultation. Positive aspects of the Draft RTI Rules While 60-65% of the Draft RTI Rules repeat the content of the 2012 RTI Rules, some new aspects deserve appreciation as they clarify the manner of implementation of key provisions of the RTI Act. These are: Provisions for dealing with non-compliance of the orders and directives of the Central Information Commission (CIC) by public authorities- this was missing in the 2012 RTI Rules. Non-compliance is increasingly becoming a major problem- two of my non-compliance cases are...
Post a Comment
»