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Ministries to put up RTI replies online from Oct 31

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New Delhi: Taking transparency to another level, the government on Tuesday directed all its ministries and departments to suo motu display RTI applications and responses thereof, on their respective websites from October 31.

However, the DoPT instructions in this regard do leave scope for withholding RTI replies that contain personal information relating to an individual. “It may be noted that RTI applications and appeals received and their responses relating to the personal information of an individual may not be disclosed if they do not serve any public interest,” said the DoPT note circulated to all Union ministries and departments on Tuesday.

To facilitate uploading of RTI applications and appeals received and their responses on the website, a new feature has been added to the CPIO/FAA module on the ‘RTI Online’ portal on pilot basis for DoPT. Through this feature, an option is given to the central public information officers (CPIO) and first appellate authority (FAA) to upload the reply to RTI query and the first appeal respectively on to the department’s website. This particular feature will now be extended to other ministries and departments as well. To display the RTI applications received in the ministry/department and the reply given using this feature, web services will be provided through a URL to each ministry or department by NIC or DoPT.

Public information officers and rights activists are skeptical about the decision to  publicise RTI responses online as a similar direction issued by UPA government in April 2013 was never implemented.

A similar circular was issued by the Department of Personnel and Training in April 2013. The circular said: “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 personal information of an individual may not be disclosed, as they do not serve any public interest.” The directive was never followed though.

Though the government has set October 31 as deadline for implementing the direction, it has not indicated any kind of action against defaulting PIOs. While it’s an important step towards bringing transparency in the administration, the government must ensure compliance of the circular as in past sever such direction were not implemented, said former central information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi. “It would not be difficult to scan and upload the reply provided government makes resources available to PIOs,” he added.

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