Notwithstanding the claims of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy about the speed and transparency with which his office dealt with files and petitions, the State Information Commission has stated that 33 cases of Right to Information (RTI) applications have been pending with his office for quite some long time. The 170 meeting of the State Information Commission held last week, presided over by Chief Information Commissioner Siby Mathews, has decided to write to the private secretary of the Chief Minister “asking him to apprise” Mr. Chandy of the matter.
According to sources at the commission, the pending queries comprise those relating to a set of controversial decisions taken by the Chief Minister and his office in the solar power scam and Aranmula airport cases.
“It is quite disappointing to see that the Chief Minister’s office is refusing to answer RTI queries when the Chief Minister himself is talking about taking speedy decisions. The commission has written many times to the office to speed up the process. But nothing has happened so far,” said D.B. Binu, a Kochi-based RTI activist.
As per the minutes of the 170 meeting of the commission, a number of other offices and departments are also not furnishing data called for by it and so its annual report for 2011-2012 was getting delayed. The commission has also decided to write to the Chief Secretary asking him to expedite action.
“Getting government officials to be proactive to RTI is a difficult task. Many are yet to understand its importance and relevance,” said M.N. Gunavardan, information officer. The commission has also decided to amend confidential reports of all gazetted officers in the State by incorporating their attitude towards dealing with RTI applications.
There must be mention about penalisation if any by State Information Commission in the confidential report. It has also suggested that the government include one paper on RTI in the mandatory department tests for promotion.
