Govt institutions turn down RTI petitions in Kerala

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even a decade after the Right to Information Act was passed, none of the government institutions in the state have disclosed the details, including financial statements, minutes of meetings and remuneration of the staff. Even the State Information Commission (SIC) is not following these norms prescribed by the RTI Act in its letter and spirit. The RTI Act's section 4 (1) (b) mandates publishing of 17 categories of information by public institutions within 120 days of the enactment of the Act.

But the state government institutions, it seems, have given scant regard to the directive. “The provision was given in the RTI Act with the intention of ensuring transparency. But the government institutions seem to be limiting their transparency only in words and not in deeds,” said RTI activist D.B. Binu who recently approached the State Information Commission seeking a directive to the government institutions to follow  section 4 of the RTI Act. He also said that once the 17 categories of information prescribed in the section were made public and updated regularly, many RTI queries could be avoided.

Interestingly, the State Information Commission, which should have shown a model to other institutions, also did not provide the information as mandated by the Act. While the Act mandates that the remuneration details of the commission should be provided, the SIC website still provides the remuneration of previous commission chief and members. Many other relevant details are also not updated. Chief information commissioner Vinson M. Paul was not available for comments. Meanwhile, many of the central government institutions are promptly updating the mandatory basic information on their respective websites, sources pointed out.

The 17 categories of information include functions and duties of the institution; powers and duties of officers and employees; minutes of meetings of committees that are open to public; monthly remuneration received by each official; budget allocations and expenditure statements; details like list of beneficiaries of subsidy programmes and particulars of facilities available to the citizens for obtaining information.