IMPA conducts program on Good Governance, PSGA

DAILY EXCELSIOR, 30th june, 2012 

JAMMU, June 29: The five-day program on Good Governance and Public Service Guarantee Act (PSGA) sponsored by DoPT, Government of India, which was started on June 25 concluded here today. The programme was conducted by J&K Institute of Management and Public Administration (IMPA) in collaboration with Rural Development. The programme was attended by more than a dozen officers from different departments including Handicraft and Animal Husbandry. The course was conducted by Course Director, Dr Sunita Kaul Zalpuri, Associate Professor IMPA. The course exposed participants to the concept of good governance, PSGA, E-Governance, Right to Information and other issues to meet the contemporary expectations of the citizens. Besides Dr Sunita other faculty members who enlightened the participating officers included Dr RK Hakim, Anil Sharma and RTI activist Raman Sharma. The course also included field visit to Central Jail, Kot Bhalwal, where Rajni Seghal educated officers about Prison administration in J&K. The valedictory function and feedback session was conducted in the presence of Deputy Director, Kusum Sharma and Joint Director, Sunita Anand of IMPA along with course director.

--
Raman Sharma

cell tel: 9796811012

RTI applicants paying Rs 500 for info from Allahabad HC

Business Standard, 22, June,2012

New Delhi :  RTI applicants seeking information from Allahabad High Court are shelling out Rs 500 for each piece of information as the Uttar Pradesh government has not notified reduced fee recommended by the High Court in the Gazette. 

This came to light during a hearing at the Central Information Commission where Allahabad High Court officials conceded that they have reduced the fee rules but the state government had not notified it resulting in continuation of higher fee. According to RTI Act, public authorities can frame rules regarding fee. The central government has fixed Rs 10 as fee for each RTI application but Allahabad High Court and other authorities had fixed huge fee for furnishing of information which came under criticism from the CIC also. Seeing the variance in the fee prescribed by the public authorities, the Department of Personnel and Training had asked the state and central public authorities to review their fee rules and bring them in consonance with the fee prescribed by Government of India. Following the instructions, Allahabad High Court had amended its rules and sent it to the state government for notification which did not happen. "Allahabad High Court had revisited its rules and the amended rules were pending with the Uttar Pradesh government for notification in the Gazette," Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra observed while hearing the petition by activist Subhash Agrawal. He said although the high court has been reminding the   state government to publish the rules urgently, it is rather strange that the UP government should be taking so much time to publish the same in their Gazette.

HC stays notice to its registry for denying information

Times of India, June 19,2012 

CHENNAI: Citing a Supreme Court judgment slamming misuse of the RTI Act for 'indiscriminate and impractical' information , the Madras high court has stayed a State Information Commission's showcause notice to the high court registry asking why the latter should not be fined Rs 25,000 for failing to disclose the information sought by an applicant.

A division bench of Justice P Jyothimani and Justice MDuraisamy , concurring with the submissions of the senior advocate and former additional advocate-general A L Somayaji , granted the interim relief to the court's registrar-general , against whom the commission had issued the show-cause notice .

P Kalyanasundaram of Pattalam filed an application under the Madras high court seeking a list of all registers , with index or subjects , and copies of all forms and registers being maintained by the high court . The application was made in January 2009 .After the lapse of the deadline for disclosure of information under the Act, the applicant approached the commission which asked the registrar-general to offer remarks . In April 2010, the commission wanted to know action was taken by the high court on the application .In January 2011, Kalyanasundaram complained to the commission and also sought compensation . In May 2011, the public information officer of the court informed the commission that the information was being collated , and in February this year he sought clarification on the demands of the applicant. In May the officer said the request of the RTI applicant was impossible to comply with as he had sought a copy of all forms , ledgers and registers maintained at the high court. On May 23 , the commission issued a show-cause notice directing the registrar-general to furnish the information sought.

Assailing the notice , the high court registry filed a petition , stating that the request of the applicant was not in accordance with the object of the RTI Act. The notice is liable to be set aside on the ground that indiscriminate and impracticable demand made by Kalyanasundaram cannot be acceded to and that it would severely affect the efficiency of the administration ,itsaid .

The judges said : "It is seen that Kalyanasundaram seeks information in respect of each and every aspect without even specifying the instances and every time , application is being filed seeking production of copies of various records." They then stayed the show-cause notice for a period of eight weeks.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-19/chennai/32316678_1_rti-applicant-public-information-officer-rti-act

SAVE MY TAWI VOLUNTEERS SEEK MEDIA SUPPORT--GALAXYNEWS, 14,JUNE,2012

"SAVE MY TAWI" Volunteers Seek Media Support

              Youth  Involvement  Inevitable

Notice issued to two for delay in providing info under RTI

PTI | 01:06 PM,Jun 13,2012

Srinagar, Jun 13 (PTI) The Jammu and Kashmir State Information Commission has issued show cause notices to two officers for delaying information to an applicant under the Right to Information Act. "Chief Information Commissioner G R Sufi issued notices to Public Information Officer and Managing Director of the Housing Board, the first appellate authority, to explain their conduct within 30 days," an official spokesman said. Sufi observed that Public Information Officer of the Housing Board was under an obligation to pass orders within 30 days and also provide as much information as he could have deciphered from the application. The Chief Information Commissioner has also observed that the first appellate authority, the Managing Director Housing Board, was under legal obligation in terms of Section 16 of Right to Information Act, 2009, to adjudicate upon the appeal and decide the issue.

Citizens Vow to protect River Tawi: Galaxynews

Galaxynews, 07/June/2012, Jammu

Planning Commission splurges Rs 35 lakh on two toilets!

OneIndia News, June,06/2012
http://news.oneindia.in/feature/2012/planning-commission-spends-rs-35-lakh-on-two-toilets-1013566.html

Sreekumar Narayan

Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 15:53 [IST]

The Planning Commission's definition of poor excludes those earning more than Rs 28 per day, yet it had no hesitation in splurging Rs 35 lakh on the renovation of two toilets at Yojana Bhavan! An RTI reply to activist Subhash Agrawal revealed that Rs 5.19 lakh was spent on installing an access control system in the toilets and a total of 60 officials were issued the necessary smart cards. "Cost of installation of Door Access Control System is Rs 5,19,426 for two toilets. Cost of renovation of two toilets where door access control system is installed is Rs 30,00,305," the activist was informed. Incidentally, the costly door access system had to be disabled within hours as staff working on both the first and second floor of the commission's headquarters raised objections to being kept out of the fancy washrooms. Apparently renovation of two toilets on the RBI side of Yojana Bhavan was undertaken as a pilot project. Three other toilets are to be refurbished similarly. The opposition demanded an inquiry after the media highlighted this on June 6, 2012. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his party the JD(U) strongly criticised the Planning Commission for spending huge sums on revamping toilets.

Since government departments have been ordered to cut down on unnecessary expenditure, the Bharatiya Janata Party questioned the relevance of the much-vaunted austerity drive after the stunning revelations. However, the Planning Commission asserted that only routine maintenance had been carried out. Days earlier, a newspaper had highlighted how the commission's Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia incurred foreign travel expenses to the tune of Rs 2.02 lakh per day between May and Oct 2011. Another report said that he undertook 42 official trips, aggregating 274 days, between June 2004-January 2011 at a cost of Rs 2.34 crore. When various editorials about these staggering figures appeared, Ahluwalia claimed that foreign travel is necessary for discharge of official duties. The Planning Commission's extravagance is particularly shocking given the controversial poverty line estimates it came up with twice. First it said that if an individual is earning more than Rs 32 each day, he or she does not fall in the BPL category. It later revised the figure downwards. 

The commission seemed to be oblivious of the fact that millions of Indians cannot manage even two square meals a day despite their best efforts. This is a country where thousands still defecate in the open as there are no toilets nearby. Pathetic ignorance of the ground realities is not expected from the panel that is supposed to formulate policies for our collective welfare. The Planning Commission's members must descend from their ivory towers and look at the example set by one of the world's richest persons. During his recent visit to India, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said that he is searching for "a cheaper alternative to the flush toilet that does not require running water, has smell characteristics better than the flush toilet and is cheap." Averring that no innovation in the last 200 years has saved more lives than the toilet, he rued that 2.6 billion people across the world still don't have a safe "affordable way to poop". Bill's dream of an inexpensive and non-polluting toilet is similar to the one of Bindeshwar Pathak who devised the Sulabh toilets. The latter has already made a significant contribution in eradicating the abhorrent practice of human scavenging. If the planners emulate these two individuals, the entire nation will benefit. Alas, they haven't shown any such inclination so far.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/plan-panel-raises-stink-over-toilets-worth-lakhs/264673-3.html

RTI activists face shortage of IPO-NORTHLINES

NORTHLINES, 02/JUNE/2012  http://www.thenorthlines.com/newsdet.aspx?q=52612

Jyoti Sangral  

Jammu, 

While government is claiming that efforts are being made to create awareness about the Right to Information (RTI) act across the state, information seekers here are facing the shortage of Indian Postal Orders (IPOs) mandatory before filing their applications under the Act. 

As per the procedure, one has to deposit a fee with an RTI application to get the required information from the department concerned. But in Jammu, many of the post offices have no stock of these IPOs each costing Rs. 10, which are fixed with the application. In many cases officials at the post office are not even aware about the RTI Act and how an application is filed.

"The IPOs of Rs. 10 have been out of stock for past few weeks. Despite several requests, we have not yet got the supply. Number of people daily return empty handed," said the official of India Post. 

An RTI activist, Amit Sharma alleged, "The public is facing hardship in filing applications, as the IPOs are not available in the post offices and those seeking information have to go to banks for getting drafts to seek any info". 

He added that the IPOs, which are the best and the cheapest method to seek information under the RTI Act, should be provided to the people. 

Many of the activists who want to get information from the departments alleged that the process of getting info is also quite cumbersome and at times they have to wait for months together to get data. 

RTI has assumed great significance in the present scenario in the country. Although the Right to Information Act, 2004 has provided an window of opportunity to the people to get information about the working of the government agencies, but still much more needs to be done in the interest of the people in Jammu and Kashmir. 

"The act has power and potential to introduce serious accountability and transparency into the system. It has its own legitimacy in the disposal of public grievances, but government needs to provide necessary tools to the masses", said an activist Lalit Kumar. 

Though J&K was first state to introduce the act but it is still lagging behind in the implementation of RTI, mainly due to the lack of awareness among the masses. 

As per the data so far nearly 7000 applications have been filed by various organisations and individuals in different departments in the state.