Centre focus on 3 backward TS dists

WHILE AP was worse of where the percentage of disposal was around 5 per cent, both the Telugu states said there was staff shortage to oversee the RTI operations.

Three districts each from TS and Andhra Pradesh figure in the list of 115 backward districts notified by the Centre as lagging in education, health, nutrition, basis infrastructure like rural road connectivity rural household electrification, access to potable water and individual toilets. The list was drawn up in consultation with the NITI Aayog.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with incharge officials of these districts on Friday as part of the conference to launch his ambitious programme “Transformation of Aspirational Districts”, which aims to bring back to mainstream, the backward districts.

From Telangana state, the three backward districts are Bhupalapally, Asifabad and Khammam, and those from AP are Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and Kadapa. Of these, Khammam and Visakhapatnam have been identified as districts affected by Left wing extremism.

A mere 10 per cent of the fresh RTI applications received every month were being disposed of by the Right to Information Commissioner in TS.

One lucky RTI application that was processed revealed that the Right to Information Commission was sitting on 8,000 applications till the end of October 2017.

While Andhra Pradesh was worse of where the percentage of disposal was around 5 per cent, both the Telugu states said there was staff shortage to oversee the RTI operations.

When the RTI provisions provided for the appointment of 10 commissioners, TS had two, of which one was the chairman, and AP had none. When the Information Commission was bifurcated, both the governments took no action to fill the vacancies.

Following this, a PIL was filed in the High Court requesting for orders to constitute the commission and a deadline of September 21, 2017, was fixed. The Telangana government appointed two members, while AP was yet to take any action. As a result, the number of applications pending was high.

The applications mainly concerned cases of corruption in revenue, municipal administration, home and transport departments. Matters were taken to the commission as departments were unwilling to disclose information.

The RTI found that the rate of disposal of appeals was extremely low. In October, the number of cases received by TS – IC was 595 of which 81 were disposed and the total pending cases amounted to 7,513.

At this rate of disposal, the commission might not be in a position to take up fresh appeals. There was an immediate necessity to intervene and appoint more information commissioners to match the number of officials prior to the expiry of the term of the earlier information commissioner, it is being argued.

When the issue was raised with the IC, an officer said, “There is a limitation. There are two commissioners and each has his/her own restraints. It is a difficult task to dispose of a high number on a daily basis. In fact, out of the pending cases, we have been able to clear 430 appeals in November- December. By all means, the IC is trying to clear 200 appeals a month, beyond that we cannot be doing much unless more commissioners are appointed.”