Only 1/4th of government bodies making mandatory RTI disclosures: Central Information Commission

The Central Information Commission on Wednesday questioned the government bodies with regard to meeting the requirement of mandatory suo-motu disclosures under the RTI Act and said that there was need for "introspection" as only a little over one-fourth of the 2,276 public authorities have followed statutory guidelines.

Under Section IV of the Right to Information Act, a public authority is mandated to publish on its website 17 classes of information about its working and the records held by it so that people need not burden it with RTI applications.

The annual report of the CIC, which was released on Wednesday, shows that only 667 of the 2,276 public authorities have fulfilled the mandatory requirement.

"This needs introspection by Ministry/Department/Public Authorities as to the reasons why despite having good ICT infrastructure available with them, its usages for strengthening the system of mandatory disclosure norms remains unattended," the report said.

The report said that the public authorities with field formations need to assess the quality, citizen friendliness, and the periodicity of dissemination of information so as to institutionalise the disclosure mechanism as mandated under Section IV of the RTI Act, 2005.

"Ultimately, it is the creation of robust and dynamic citizen-government interface through sharing of information that should be talisman of our democracy," it said.