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Of India’s 838 public authorities, Central Information Commission has given ‘E’ grade to 35% because they don’t share mandatory information.



New Delhi: The Central Information Commission (CIC) has found that over one-third of India’s public authorities are not sharing vital information which is mandated to be public under the RTI Act.

The CIC’s report, released Tuesday, has given 35 per cent of the 838 public authorities an ‘E’ grade when it comes to proactively sharing information on official websites, as mandated under Section 4 of the RTI Act.

According to the audit report, PAs that score less than 60 per cent marks are given an ‘E’ grade, which indicates that they do not meet the minimum disclosure requirements.

Some of the most important PAs with this grade include the departments of revenue and economic affairs under the finance ministry, the Election Commission, State Bank of India, and the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), among others.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is one of 19 per cent of public authorities which have been graded ‘A’.

Another 19 per cent have been graded ‘B’, while 14 per cent authorities are ‘C’ and 13 per cent have received a ‘D’.

Also read: Modi PMO won’t divulge corruption complaints against ministers despite CIC order

Criteria

The criteria for grading included organisation and functions of public authorities, budget and programme, e-governance, and information disclosed on own initiative.

Public authorities have been found not proactively sharing information about the decision-making process of the government, delegation of powers within departments and ministries, the system of compensation paid to officials, minutes of government meetings, policies on transfers, and postings of senior officers, among others.

Some of the more controversial areas in which information ought to be shared, but is not, are details of domestic and foreign visits undertaken by senior officials, and sources and methods of funding political parties or identification of donors.

Also read: CIC asks PM’s office to disclose corruption allegations against union ministers between 2014-17

Recommendations

The CIC has recommended that there should be a regular audit of public authorities’ websites, which should become “a firm basis for progressive and incremental changes in the design and the content of the websites indicating the public authority’s seriousness about mandatory disclosures”.

The CIC and the department of personnel and training may also consider setting up “a web-based mechanism” to note all update dates of the websites, send out advance reminders to public authorities’ website managers or nodal officers, and get defaulting public authorities to update the sites.

The CIC or DoPT may also consider setting up a separate dedicated unit for website monitoring and auditing.

“Comprehensive information disclosures on websites of PAs, which are carefully designed and regularly updated, will doubtless make a significant difference in terms of the public authority-public interface,” the CIC report said.

“The increase in the trust quotient between the public and the public authority brings in huge benefits in terms of improvement in delivery efficiency and other rewards.”

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