RESISTANCE TO RTI HAS GROWN : VENKATESH NAYAK

“The government prefer retired officers so that they would be able to influence the decision-making process,” said Venkatesh Nayak, a prominent

RTI activist and coordinator of the Access to Information Programme at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. “It’s more of a bargaining exercise. When officials who have served long careers in the government system are being appointed, they would know how to disclose information the way the government expects.they also don’t want to bring in members of judiciary, ideally retired judges because if any information officer contravenes the law, monetary penalties could be imposed. But many of the retired bureaucrats rarely impose monetary penalties.”

When asked as to why many RTI applications are pending to be disposed,

Nayak said that there are multiple reasons to it.“one of the reasons is the fact that these officers are retired bureaucrats. Another reason is the level of infrastructure where most information commissions are short-staffed and there’s less funding. When there’s a qualified staff the case will be disposed quickly. Not all information commissioners believe in disposing information rapidly.”

The Daily Mirror also learned that there is no compensation scheme for dependents of murdered activists. When asked about his opinion, Nayak further said that if there’s a compensation scheme, it means that the government accepted that its responsible for the murder of these activists. But no government wants to take this responsibility. On the other hand, the police ignores investigating into such cases.

“Resistance to RTI has grown and unless there’s a change in the way the government looks at transparency, nothing will change,” Nayak further said. “Useful information such as the process in recruiting school teachers aren’t available in the public domain. Hence there’s no accountability. If we get a wide political leadership it is possible to change India from a representative democracy to a participatory one. Unless more and more reform-minded people come into the system and work together to make the government more responsible, accountable and participatory, things will more or less remain stagnant.”