More than 96% of RTI applicants in
Maharashtra got information in last seven years .This claim is made by
state information commission (SIC) of Maharashtra in its seventh annual report placed before state legislative assembly. If this claim is to be believed then
there is already "RAMRAJYA" (Goode Governance) in Maharashtra. The
claim is based on information provided by various public authorities in the
state. As per report in last seven years i.e. since inception of RTI act Public
Authorities (PA) received total 31, 72,114 RTI applications, out of which only 1,27,357 i.e. only 4% of the applicants filed second
appeals , that means 96% i.e. 30, 71, 532 applicants got the desired information.
If this statistics
is to believed there is no need of proactive disclosure or any other measures
for implementation of RTI act in Maharashtra. However, Ground reality is far more different from this. Surprisingly in
this report, it has stated that 80 % of
the Public Information Officers (PIO) and First appellate authorities are
unaware of procedure to be followed to address RTI queries as per the act. The
act has not been propagated and reached to its beneficiaries in true sense. Many
public authorities have not complied with section 4 of the act. Status of the
documentation or record is not satisfactory in most of the public authorities. It
is hard to believe that despite of all these odds 96% of the applicants got the
desired information. The only conclusion
that can be drawn from this situation is that, the data supplied by public
authorities on whom this report is not trust worthy, and SIC cannot verify
this data by any means.
Since last
three four years SIC reports are just
copy paste work. This year is also no exception. There were lot of
expectations as state chief information commissioner was a former state chief secretary,
has thorough knowledge of administration. When last two annual reports were submitted,
he was in chair as a chief secretary. He was supposed to find the ways to
tackle hurdles in compliance of suggestions of SIC and implementation of RTI
act. However, nothing happened. He has same expectations from government that
earlier commissions had.
Vacant posts of
commissioners , vacant posts of employees , not supply of franking machines,
non compliance of section 4 of the RTI act, non compliance of sic decisions,
poor documentation and record keeping, Necessity of training to PIO's, FAA' and
citizens all such demands are there since last seven years but Government did not pay any heed. It was possible for Ratnakar Giakwad to do
something for RTI act as a chief secretary, but he did not do anything. Now
he expects that governments view must be positive towards supply of necessary facilities
to SIC.
The only new suggestions
from SIC this year are, syllabus related to The RTI act , Maharashtra Public Records Act and Delay in Discharge of official duties should be included in Departmental
Qualification Examination of employees and scanned documents to RTI applicant
should be provided to RTI applicant , it will save time and energy of public
authority.
It is almost
more than a year that Ratnakar Giakwad assumed charge of chief Information commissioner.
There were lot of expectations from him. Getting
approved "appeal procedure rules" from government was one of the
major task before him, but he could not do so. The only positive thing he
did was, fast disposal of second appeals
and bringing pendency his bench to almost zero.
