Govt guidelines for voluntary disclosure of info under RTI

Departments, boards and corporations in Haryana have been sluggish in uploading and updating information on their official websites

CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government has issued guidelines regarding the importance of suo motu disclosure of information and duties and responsibilities for ensuring proper uploading of information on office website and timely updation of information under section 4(1) b of the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005.

Giving this information here on Thursday, a spokesman for the administrative reforms department said the nodal officer for website of the department or corporation would ensure uploading and updation of all the information required to be placed in public domain as per provisions of the Act. “In case this is not done, the same would be completed at the earliest and a certificate to this effect would be given by head of department to administrative reforms department within a week positively,” he added.

While most departments, boards and corporations have their official departments, voluntary disclosure of information under various sub-sections of Section 4(1) of the Act has remained non-starter a decade after the RTI Act was implemented in the state.

The government departments and other organisations are still to develop any mechanism for pro-active and timely disclosure of information related to government decisions, plans and policies.

While only a few government departments regularly upload and update information on their official websites, most others continue to show old information and orders. They do not update information regarding the state public information officer (SPIO) and first appellate authority, fee structure, procedure etc.

However, the spokesman said that information including name, designation and contact details about SPIO and first appellant authority, both at headquarters and in the field, must be prominently displayed on the website of the department and on the notice board in front of Office of SPIO and Appellant Authority. “The head of department and nodal officers would ensure that the applications received under RTI are being disposed of in time by sending the desired information to the applicant, so that number of appeals in the commission could be decreased,” he said.

He said a written communication to this effect has been sent to all the administrative secretaries, heads of departments, divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners, and managing directors and chief administrators of all the boards and corporations to ensure immediate compliance of these instructions.