Srinagar, Dec , 29:The Peoples Democratic Party Thursday accused the NC led govt of failing to effectively implement Right to Information act in the state by creating hurdles through Non implementation of vital sections of the RTI act and commercializing its operation the state.
The chief spokesman of the party, Naeem Akhtar, said that government is virtually trying to subvert the Act by deliberately avoiding to create awareness about it, which is a stated objective of this important law. The government has turned a blind eye towards effective RTI implantation which apparently suggests that the NC led dispensation is ensuring that no institution or mechanism is able to work effectively to curb the rampant corruption and bring transparency in the administration. He said “Instead of providing voluntary information to the public, they are placing bottlenecks on it through one tactic or another making difficult its implementation at the grass root level.”
The chief spokesman of the party, Naeem Akhtar, said that government is virtually trying to subvert the Act by deliberately avoiding to create awareness about it, which is a stated objective of this important law. The government has turned a blind eye towards effective RTI implantation which apparently suggests that the NC led dispensation is ensuring that no institution or mechanism is able to work effectively to curb the rampant corruption and bring transparency in the administration. He said “Instead of providing voluntary information to the public, they are placing bottlenecks on it through one tactic or another making difficult its implementation at the grass root level.”
The spokesman said that charging fat sums, for information which people have the constitutional right to know, is completely absurd. This government has turned the RTI institution into money minting machine by charging 50 rupees an RTI and 10 rupees per photocopy which amounts to extortion as these rates are ten times above the market rates, suggesting that government is trying to prohibit people from using the RTI. In spite of an assurance by the govt on the floor of state Assembly in 2009, to review the high processing fees under RTI, Akhtar said nothing had been done.
The spokesman accused the NC govt of failing to create awareness about the potential strength of RTI as it can expose the rampant corruption in the higher echelons of administration. The government has also failed to implement the vital section 4(1) (b) of the act which can ensure pro-active disclosures of various things not mentioned in detail in the J & K RTI Act 2009, he said. The selective implementation of RTI according to its own convenience suggests that it is not bothered to implement the vital section which could lead to quick disclosures of large scale bungling in the administration, he added.
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