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‘Make information provision hassle-free’

BHUBANESWAR: Orissa Information Commission on Monday directed General Administration and Home Department to appoint senior officials to facilitate smooth supply of information regarding property statements being filed by bureaucrats in the State.

An information seeker had been running from pillar to the post to get a satisfactory answer if top administrative officials were filing their property statements in accordance with sub-rule 4 of rule 21 in Orissa Government Servant Conduct Rule –1959.

Both GA and Home Department were accused of supplying incomplete information. While GA Department asked information seeker, Biswapriya Kanungo, to refer to website for getting detail information regarding property statement, Home Department reportedly failed to furnish full details.

Aggrieved RTI activist had knocked door of Orissa Information Commission and higher-ups in GA department. Mr. Kanungo had sought that which officer had submitted his or her property list and who did not and what steps had been taken by State government against erring officials between the year 2000 and 2008.

Information Commission asked GA department to furnish its action taken report by December 31 and asked Home Department to reply within the next month

“I am yet to receive the information as to what action has been taken by the State government against bureaucrats who have failed to submit property list,” Mr. Kanungo said. The discipline has to percolate down from the top, he said.

Mr. Kanungo said hopefully the government would provide complete information on property statement, as it was not concerned with individual. As per the direction of SIC, special secretary of GA department would be looking into the matter while officer of the rank of joint secretary or additional secretary would have to monitor compilation of information related to submission of property statement. Though GA department has posted several pages of information regarding filing of property statement by officials on its website, its procedure to retrieve those information has been wrongly mentioned.

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‘Make information provision hassle-free’

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