The Central Information Commission and DoPT have put detailed guidelines on suo motu disclosure by public authorities, but most PIOs continue to be ignorant or to feign ignorance about Section 4 of the RTI Act

On Tuesday, I visited the Food Supply Office of the Pune district Collectorate to conduct an inspection of files under Section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. I was seeking information about the quantity of supply of wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene to rationshopkeepers under the public distribution system (PDS) in one of the six zones in Pune that the supply system has been demarcated into.

Public information officer (PIO) of the B Zone of the Food Supply Office was taken completely by surprise. She said she was unaware of anything called Section 4 under which a citizen can inspect files in the office. She said she is just 18 months since she is a PIO to which I said it’s too long a time and she should have studied the RTI Act by now. She nervously said that she had only heard of a RTI application that needs to be submitted by the citizen after which she gets a certain amount of days to reply. She frantically tried calling her seniors but could not get through to them.

Despite explaining to her the Section 4 and that, the information I am asking for comes under Section 4—sub sections 1, 12 and 13, she pleaded to be given just one day before she could provide me the information.

Seeing her nervousness, I relented and would be going back to her again on Wednesday, but the point is, most of the PIOs seem to hardly aware of Section 4 of the RTI Act. I have had similar experiences in Maharashtra State Road Development Corp (MSRDC), when I went to seek information under Section 4 for Pune-Mumbai expressway issue. Same thing happened at the office of Secretary, Environment, in Mantralaya, while seeking information on the Dow Chemical’s issue. Though ultimately they relented and allowed me to see the documents, the fact is, the government seems to deliberately keep the PIOs ignorant or the PIOs find it convenient to dilly-dally so that they do not get into trouble with their seniors.

As per the latest annual report of Maharashtra’s State Information Commission, 80% of PIOs and Appellate Authorities (AAs) do not know the basics of the RTI Act. This is despite the fact that YASHADA, the public administration development institute of the state government, has so far trained over 70,000 PIOs and AAs.

Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), which has demanded strict implementation of Section 4 of the RTI Act from all public authorities, observed in its memo of 15 April 2013 that: “Since the promulgation of the Act in 2005, large amount of information relating to functioning of the government is being put in public domain. However, the quality and quantity of proactive disclosure is not up to the desired level. It was felt that the weak implementation of the Section 4 of the RTI Act is partly due to the fact that certain provisions of this Section have not been fully detailed and, in case of certain other provisions there is need for laying down detailed guidelines. Further, there is need to set up a compliance mechanism to ensure that requirements under section 4 of the RTI Act are met.’’

This was a sequel to the recommendations made by a ‘Task Force’ involving civil society, which the government had appointed, to strengthen the RTI Act.

Some of the guidelines for implementation are given below, which are still ignored by most of the public authorities (for full details go to http://cic.gov.in/ ). The information which is mandatory to be put under the public domain includes grants, concessions, procurement, public-private-partnerships, official tours, transfer policies, RTI applications. Citizen Charter and use of digital technology to put up information:

Information related to procurement

Information relating to procurement made by Public Authorities including publication of notice/tender enquiries, corrigenda thereon, and details of bid awards detailing the name of the supplier of goods/services being procured or the works contracts entered or any such combination of these and the rate and total amount at which such procurement orworks contract is to be done should be disclosed.

Public private partnerships

If Public services are proposed to be provided through a Public Private Partnership (PPP), all information relating to the PPPs must be disclosed in the public domain by the Public Authority entering into the PPP contract/concession agreement. This may include details of the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), if any set up, detailed project reports, concession agreements, operation and maintenance manuals and other documents generated as part of the implementation of the PPP project.

Transfer policy and transfer orders

Transfer policy for different grades/cadres of employees serving in Public Authority should be proactively disclosed. All transfer orders should be publicized through the website or in any other manner listed in Section 4(4) of the Act.

RTI applications

All Public Authorities shall proactively disclose RTI applications and appeals received and their responses, on the websites maintained by Public Authorities with search facility based on key words. RTI applications and appeals received and their responses relating to the personal information of an individual may not be disclosed, as they do not serve any public interest

CAG & PAC

Public Authorities may proactively disclose the CAG & PAC paras and the Action Taken Reports (ATRs) only after these have been laid on the table of both the houses of the Parliament.

Citizens Charter

Citizens Charter prepared by the ministry/department, as part of the Result Framework Document of the department/organization should be proactively disclosed and six-monthly report on the performance against the benchmarks set in Citizens Charter should also be displayed on the website of public authorities.

Discretionary and non-discretionary grants

All discretionary/ non-discretionary grants/ allocations to state governments/ NGOs/ other institutions by ministry/department should be placed on the website of the ministry/department concerned. Annual accounts of all legal entities who are provided grants by public authorities should be made available through publication, directly or indirectly on the public authority’s website.

Foreign tours of PM/Ministers

Public authorities may proactively disclose the details of foreign and domestic official tours undertaken by the Minister(s) and officials of the rank of joint secretary to the Government of India and above and Heads of Departments, since 1st January, 2012. The disclosures may be updated once every quarter. Information to be disclosed proactively may contain nature of the official tour, places visited, the period, number of people included in the official delegation and total cost of such travel undertaken.

Guidelines for digital publication of proactive disclosure under Section 4

Section 4 lays down that information should be provided through many mediums depending upon the level of the public authority and the recipient of information (for example, in case of panchayat, wall painting may be more effective means of dissemination of information), and that more and more proactive disclosure would gradually be made through Internet. There is need for more clear guidelines for web-based publication of information for disclosure.

Guidelines for certain clauses of Section 4(1)(b) to make disclosure more effective

The elements of information listed in the various sub-clauses of Section 4(1)(b) must be disclosed in an integrated manner. For example, the functions and responsibilities of a public authority cannot be understood in isolation from the powers and functions of its employees, the norms that inform its decision making processes and the rules, instructions and manuals that are used in the discharge of its functions. Description of one element presupposes the existence of another. So every public authority must endeavour to integrate the information mentioned in these sub-clauses while preparing voluntary disclosure materials.

Annual reports to parliament/legislatures

Government has issued directions to all ministries/departments to include a chapter on RTI Act in their annual reports submitted to the parliament. Details about compliance with proactive disclosure guidelines should mandatorily be included in the relevant chapter in annual report of ministry/department.

So, who’s going to ensure that all the guidelines have been met? Citizens should lodge complaints with their respective information commissioners; head of public authorities should monitor their PIOs and AAs and; information commissioners should suo motuissue orders at regular intervals to public authorities. If each one works towards it, there is hope.