CHENNAI:
The Tamil Nadu Right to Information Campaign on Saturday stressed the
need for strengthening a people’s movement for the right to information
in the State. It urged the State Government to ensure that applications
submitted by people below the poverty line were treated on a priority
basis.
Director
of Human Rights Foundation Ossie Fernandes said here that a consultation held by the campaign
on the working of the Right to Information (RTI) Act expressed dismay
at the “failure of the State Government to implement the Act sincerely.”
Describing
the Tamil Nadu Right to Information Campaign as a coalition of nonGovernmental
organisations, trade unions, farmers’ associations and community groups,
he said the consultation had more than 120 participants from 16 districts
sharing their experiences in accessing information through the RTI Act.
The feedback
revealed that there had been problems at every level of implementation
of the Act from the public information officer (PIO) up to the State
Information Commission (SIC), Mr. Fernandes said.
In more than
one year of its existence, the SIC had found 96 cases where the PIOs’
had “illegally denied information.” Despite pronouncements of Penalties
against erring PIOs, none of them was carried out, he said.
The Commission
itself had no website and had failed to proactively disclose even the
most basic details such as the identity of their PIO.
The campaign
called for enhancing budgetary allocation for implementation of the RTI Act, appointing a full 10-member SIC by recruiting non-IAS members
including eminent academics, journalists and lawyers and opening two
additional information commission branches in other suitable locations
in the State.
It also
stressed the need for imparting training to the PIOs and Assistant PIOs
on their responsibilities under the RTI Act. The Government
should publish a comprehensive list of all State public authorities,
their PIOs and APIOs, apart from providing information such as
application fees and mode of payment.
The campaign
asked the SIC not to categorise people as “habitual petitioners”
and “nuisance petitioners.”
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