Info commissioner cautions officials in dealing with RTIs

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru,Nov 25, 2016: Speaking at a meeting with officials on Nov 23, Wednesday, Information Commissioner Suchetana Swaroop said that there was negative perception on Right to Information Act among the officials.  He said that officials should be fully aware of the provisions of the RTI Act and should comply with it. The information commissioner heard 65 cases, of which 45 were from to Dakshina Kannada.

He said that the zilla panchayat and deputy commissioner’s office were lax in replying to RTI queries, the information commissioner said that around 50% of the applications sought information from the tahsildar’s office. “There is no problem in getting reply to the RTI query from the police department. The state secretariat too responds to RTI queries,” he said.

“Transparency in administration helps to provide good services to public and thus reduce the number of RTI applications. If all the information is put on the portals of respective departments, it would also help in bringing down the number of RTI queries. This will also prevent people from running from pillar to post seeking information,” he said.

He said that the applicants will not approach the information commission if the public information officers and appellate authorities discharge their function effectively. This would reduce pendency at the commission.

Officials said that they do not have separate fund for photocopying the documents sought by the RTI applicants. There are instances of officials spending from their own pocket to photocopy the documents. The commissioner said that if the size of the document was huge, the applicant can be asked to come to the office for verifying the documents. The service record of an officer and police dairy need not be furnished to the RTI applicant.

Additional DC of DK  Kumar said that there were 868 temples under the Muzrai department in Dakshina Kannada district. The executive officers at the temples act as public information officer and furnish information to the RTI applicants. In the case of temples which have no executive officers, the government has been urged to name the temple management committee president as the PIO.  DCP (Law and Order) Shantharaju, DCP (Crime and Traffic) Sanjeev Patil and Additional Superintendent of Police C B Vedamurthy were present.