Paralysis of RTI
Three years on, the law remains merely on paper

Arjimand Hussain Talib

(from greaterkashmir.com)

It is now almost three years since our State enacted the law for Right to Information (RTI) amidst fanfare that this new law would do a magic act with the quality of our governance. But three years on, looking at what the law has done in making governance better and people-friendly paints a sorry picture.

Although many loopholes continue to dog the law at the all-India level, yet the Right to Information (RTI) Act has come as a useful tool for empowerment of common masses in obtaining useful information on public issues from government of their interest. Throughout India governments’ aversion to sharing information and their dislike in making common masses partners in transparent decision-making is a reality which is widely known. When recently the Manmohan Singh government had come under intense pressure to exclude confidential file notings from RTI it became even clearer how governments were desperate to hide more than what they share with the common masses. Although the government due to widespread public and media outcry shelved the idea, what was clear was that the law continues to face challenges from power systems. When it comes to J&K, however, the nature and application of the law has been very little more than cosmetic from the very onset. One, that the very nature of the law was overshadowed by the provisions of the Official Secrets Act and that there was very little useful information in tangible terms which common people could access from government. Apart from the nature of the law for people’s empowerment what was suspect then was the implementation of the law. And today’s check of the implementation proves the worst of the cynics right.

As per the information available, 90 per cent of the government departments and public bodies in Jammu and Kashmir are yet to follow guidelines issued under the Act and issue obligatory Citizens’ Charters – containing the information they can provide to citizens of the State. It is extremely disappointing that only three out of 133 government departments and public bodies have issued and publicised Citizens’ Charters and publicized them through their websites and newspaper advertisements.

According to a Jammu-based newspaper, although about a dozen other departments have also prepared their Citizens’ Charters but they were yet to make them public or give them due publicity. Official sources reveal that 118 government departments and public bodies were yet to come out even with their Citizens’ Charters under the RTI Act. Under Section 3 of the RTI Act it is obligatory for all government departments and bodies to notify their Citizens’ Charters indicating what services they can provide to the people and how and what kind of information the people can seek from them.

This dismal picture is best illustrated with the illness and even paralysis of the official websites of almost all government departments and functions in our State. Publicising Citizens’ Charters through their websites being a far cry, we can see that hardly any of the government websites are updated on a regular basis. On some websites Mufti Muhammad Syed is still the Chief Minister of the State! Ironically, although the General Administration Department (GAD), which administers all government departments and public bodies has to ensure implementation of the RTI Act, until last week its Citizens’ Charter was yet to appear on its own website.

Under Section 3 of the RTI Act, all Government Departments and public bodies are required to make citizens aware of the services and facilities being provided to them by the government. What was crucial was that designated officers were supposed to provide information to people on the procedures and modalities to be followed in obtaining such information. All such information was to be put on websites by the departments and the public bodies which have their own website while the departments not having websites were supposed to publicise the information through newspapers and other possible modes of publicity.

When we look at the culture of public-government interface in Jammu & Kashmir, the problem is that we are one State which is heavily dominated by practices of its colonial and autocratic past. We all know democratic institutions have hardly been so strong here to empower common masses with information of basic functions and duties of government, leave aside information on larger issues at macro levels. Under such backdrop it is important that the mai baap style of public-government interface is replaced with one which is driven by accountability and transparency rather than over domination.

What government needs to do on urgent basis is to launch a mass public awareness campaign which will make them aware of the powers and duties of the government functionaries and the procedures followed by them in decision making processes. Moreover, there is a severe lack of exposure of common people to the norms set by the public authorities for discharge of their functions, rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and other categories of records under their control. That is something people must also know.

Presently there is hardly any institutional interface between people and government which would spell out details of facilities available to citizens for obtaining information, procedures for important decisions and policies that affect the public. Under the RTI it is mandatory for government departments that before initiating any project, they publish or communicate to the general public or people likely to be affected by the project in particular. That is something which seems to be a far cry for now. But a beginning is nevertheless too overdue.

According to information available from government sources, the State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) was the first department to come out with its Citizens’ Charter, followed by Police Department and Rural Development Department (RDD), Kashmir. Government is expected to encourage other departments to follow suit and make some degree of turnaround in our public style of functioning. Our governance badly needs this human touch.

We all know one of the most serious problems associated with our State is its poor work culture and lack of accountability. The steps having been taken by the present government in encouraging better work culture and improving the functioning of public organs cannot be effective in the absence of people’s empowerment to question public actions and style in detriment to public interest. For that to happen this government must take urgent steps to make the RTI more purposeful and people-centric.

(The columnist can be e-mailed at arjimand (AT) gmail.com)

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