By Raman Sharma
The Jammu and Kashmir Government led by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has obviously taken lot of public welfare measures including the most talked and powerful laws, Right to Information and Public Service Guarantee Act. Both these laws have already and of course will further be strengthening the democracy at grass root level. For bringing these laws the state government did not only receive appreciations and applauses form the people of the state, Government of India but even the international civil society groups across the globe acknowledged and greeted these pro citizenry measures by the J & K government. With the Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information Act 2009, the State Government lawfully bound the (Public Information officers) state bureaucracy to provide information to the citizens within specified period of 30 days failing which they shall be liable for penalty. Similarly the Jammu and Kashmir Public Services Guarantee Act, 2011 makes it obligatory for the (Designated Officers) officers to provide certain services to the eligible person within the time limit as specified in the act ranging from 7 to 45 days depending upon the service requirement. It is worth appreciating that would also congratulate the Government and the officers have disposed over 7000 RTI applications and more than 3 lac applications under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Guarantee Act since enactment of these laws.
No mindful person, of course including the author can and will criticize the State Government for enacting these powerful laws that makes the bureaucracy accountable, system transparent, promote democracy and enables an ordinary citizen to seek information and timely delivery of services from the officers but who will ensure that the officers who are assigned the task of ensuing these rights to the people will be provided with the sufficient staff and the required infrastructure for this purpose. The citizens are already availing the services from different offices even without the PSGA 2011 and the Government must tell the people that what additional facilities it has provided to the different departments so that these departments can facilitate the applications under PSGA in time bound manner. Who will ensure requisite infrastructure to different departments whose services are included in the PSGA. Recently the state chief minister directed for inclusion of some more services under the act but as on date perhaps not even a single rupee has been allocated by the State Government for the purpose of providing timely delivery of services.
Most of the offices in our state Government departments remain under staff and there is no record management system in place. Everyone in the government though orchestrated so loudly about the computerization of data and keeping records in the electronic format but nothing has happened so far. Unless and until our state government moves forward in the direction of computerization of records and taking immediate measures to bridge the shortfall of staff in the offices the above referred laws cannot survive long. We cannot ensure the timely delivery of services just with the whip of penalty [as proviso in
The RTI Act 2009 and PSGA 2011] on the officers and officials therefore for this purpose the State Government must also invest towards infrastructural development. The Government must activate its Information and technology department to come forward and help the state institutions by enabling them to move towards record management. It is expected from the government that it will adopt constructive approach and will not allow these powerful and citizen friendly laws to get buried just in want of physical requirements.
About Raman Sharma, he is an an RTI activist and can be reached [@] JKRTIACT@GMAIL.COM.
No mindful person, of course including the author can and will criticize the State Government for enacting these powerful laws that makes the bureaucracy accountable, system transparent, promote democracy and enables an ordinary citizen to seek information and timely delivery of services from the officers but who will ensure that the officers who are assigned the task of ensuing these rights to the people will be provided with the sufficient staff and the required infrastructure for this purpose. The citizens are already availing the services from different offices even without the PSGA 2011 and the Government must tell the people that what additional facilities it has provided to the different departments so that these departments can facilitate the applications under PSGA in time bound manner. Who will ensure requisite infrastructure to different departments whose services are included in the PSGA. Recently the state chief minister directed for inclusion of some more services under the act but as on date perhaps not even a single rupee has been allocated by the State Government for the purpose of providing timely delivery of services.
Most of the offices in our state Government departments remain under staff and there is no record management system in place. Everyone in the government though orchestrated so loudly about the computerization of data and keeping records in the electronic format but nothing has happened so far. Unless and until our state government moves forward in the direction of computerization of records and taking immediate measures to bridge the shortfall of staff in the offices the above referred laws cannot survive long. We cannot ensure the timely delivery of services just with the whip of penalty [as proviso in
The RTI Act 2009 and PSGA 2011] on the officers and officials therefore for this purpose the State Government must also invest towards infrastructural development. The Government must activate its Information and technology department to come forward and help the state institutions by enabling them to move towards record management. It is expected from the government that it will adopt constructive approach and will not allow these powerful and citizen friendly laws to get buried just in want of physical requirements.
About Raman Sharma, he is an an RTI activist and can be reached [@] JKRTIACT@GMAIL.COM.
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