The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will shortly have online Right to Information Act (RTI) portal in conformity with the portal of the Central Government. Moreover, proper training will be impacted to the officers being assigning them the role of Public Information Officers (PIOs) in the Public Authorities.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that while holding detailed deliberations on the implementation of Right to Information Act in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir few days back, Chief Secretary Dr Arun Kumar Mehta directed the Administrative Secretary of Information Technology Department to develop online RTI portal on the pattern of the portal of the Central Government.
“It should be ensured that filing of applications under the RTI Act is processed through online mode with Aadhaar based authentication”, sources said quoting the direction of the Chief Secretary, adding “the guidelines for use of online RTI portal will be similar to those framed by the Government of India for its departments and Ministries”.
Moreover, the Chief Secretary has directed all the departments to adopt proactive measures for training of the Public Information Officers (PIOs), who from now onwards would mandatorily get three days training before handling the role of PIO.
Pointing towards the strictures passed by the Central Information Commission (CIC) against the PIOs from time to time for inept handling of RTI applications, sources said that there is a dire need to impact training to the PIOs on two important aspects—-when dealing with RTI application PIO should ensure that the information provided is proper and correct and when reading the RTI application, the PIO is required to read between lines and understand the administrative action required by him.
According to the sources, the Chief Secretary has also directed the departments to develop comprehensive Dos and Don’ts with respect to the information disclosure under RTI as per the mandate of the transparency law enacted by the Parliament.
Moreover, all the Administrative Secretaries have been impressed upon to be proactive in public disclosure of information so as to achieve a greater level of transparency in governance as per the RTI Act.
“Suo-moto disclosure of relevant information in public interest should be ensured on departmental websites”, sources said further quoting the directions of the Chief Secretary.
Even instructions have been issued to the Housing and Urban Development Department for exploring the possibility of disclosure with respect to building permission on the website in line with the mandate of the RTI Act.
Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act lays down the information which should be disclosed by Public Authorities on a suo motu or proactive basis while as Section 4(2) and Section 4(3) prescribe the method of dissemination of this information.
As per Section 4(1)(b) of the Act, every Public Authority, within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of Act, is supposed to publish the particulars of its organization, functions and duties; the powers and duties of its officers and employees; the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions; the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made etc.
The Section 4(2) states: “It shall be a constant endeavour of every Public Authority to take steps in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of Sub-Section (1) to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information”.
Likewise, Section 4(3) read: “Every information shall be disseminated widely and in such form and manner which is easily accessible to the public”. Moreover, Section 4(4) states: “All materials shall be disseminated taking into consideration the cost effectiveness, local language and the most effective method of communication in that local area and the information should be easily accessible, to the extent possible in electronic format”. (Daily Excelsior)
