BY: RAMAN SHARMA
Often we the citizens and Right to Information users' complaint that the officers and Public Information Officers (PIOs) do not provide the requisite information within stipulated period of time, obviously these grievances are legitimate.
Under section 7 (1) of Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information act, the reply should be given to the applicant as expeditiously as possible, and in any case within thirty days, but there are a very few lucky RTI applicants who are able to get the sought information within the specified time and frequently the reply is delayed for days to months. Clearly the RTI Act provides relief to the applicant if he does not receive information within stipulated period of time; he can file appeal or complain with the higher authorities or the state information commission against the erring PIO.
Of course, the applicant would blame the Public Information officer for the delay in providing the requisite information well in time because the act says the PIO is responsible for the supply of information. But, it is very unfortunate that though every one of us including this writer is brisk in seeking and exercising his right i.e. right to ask but never bother to pay attention towards the fact that the rights are always connected and mutually dependent on the duties of others. We cannot claim our right in vacuum and in the case of Jammu and Kashmir RTI Act, the officers (PIOs) who have been assigned the task of ensuing our rights are not provided the necessary infrastructure despite lapse of more than 30 months since inception of J&K RTI Act (in March, 2009). Of course some delays in furnishing the information are intentional and deliberate on the part of PIO because where his benefit or his bosses interests are hurt he would definitely shy away from the transparency law. But in other cases, deficient knowledge of the act is one of the biggest reasons for not honouring the provisions of the act. The state government yet has done very little for the training and awareness programs for the officers and PIO's. There is no separate budget for implementation of the RTI Act, not even a single penny has been provided to any department (for stationery and postal charges) in this regard whereas per day number of RTI applications are increasing in every government office. Already over burdened officers, for instance in almost all the Deputy Commissioner's offices of the districts, the additional district magistrate/ADC is being designated as Public Information officer under section 5 of the act. We all know that such officers due to other important administrative assignments cannot pay due attention to this important law and in ignorance and haste they fail to adhere the provisions of the act in toto. For supplying and collecting information from the other units of the department these PIO's need human resources but again on this count also the government has not even deputed additional clerk or class iv staffer to assist the Information officer. The PIO's are not paid any extra remuneration for their additional assignments of being as information officer. Many officers even complaint that they have not even been provided the copies of the RTI act and rules yet, forget any training. In the act also the whole onus for setting out the regime of the right to information is not on the PIOs alone. Section 4, which is termed as soul of the RTI act by many RTI activists, is to be worked out by the public authorities and not by the PIOs. This section 4 hits the head of the nail and stresses on the preparations beforehand i.e. Sub- section (a) of section 4 states that "Every Public Authority shall--- maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information under the Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerized are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerized and connected through a network all over the State on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated. " The other impediment experience shared by many information officers is that though they are in position to provide the information related to their own tenure but they feel helpless to trace out old records/documents because there is no system of keeping the records in order and unfortunately in many departments the precious records have been damaged due to lots of reasons sometimes due to human negligence, natural calamities, fire break etc. Even today records in public offices are not computerized despite tall claims of the government; the PIOs demand that if the records are computerized than their more than half burden is eased out. The other critical problem of the PIOs is that even in some important and major departments there is just one PIO to deal with all RTI matter and it is not possible for him/her to handle it properly besides other routine assignments, hence the provisions of the act apt to be disordered. The non-co-operative attitude of the other colleagues of the information officers add to their sorrows because these officers do not lend a helping hand to the PIOs and here again ignorant of law, PIO feels helpless but the act is very clear in this context. Section 5(4,5) of the act clearly mentions that " the PIO may seek assistance of any other officers as he or she considers it necessary for the proper discharge of his or her duties" and " any officer who assistance has been sought shall render all assistance to the PIO seeking his or her assistance and for the purpose of any contravention of the provisions of the act. such other officers shall be treated as a PIO". Training for the PIOs and their staff is must, additional human resources must be attached with the PIO exclusively for the purpose of RTI. Additional funding, stationary charges be given to the PIOs, without wastage of any further time, the government must come out of deep hibernation and move towards proper record management and computerization of date and documents. All the above facts and circumstances depicts that for providing the regime of the transparency to the citizens the government must listen the grievances of the PIOs carefully and do the needful at an earliest. Only then the people will be able to exercise their rights because our rights are always subject to the efficiency, competence and available resources with the officers who have the duty to honour these rights. The above piece of writing is purely based on the practical experiences and inputs shared by the PIOs. (The author is an RTI activist of the state and can be reached at jkrtiact@gmail.com)
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