Third party audit suggested for public authorities' compliance of suo-motu public disclosures

The Centre has asked all public authorities, espeically public distribution system, panchayats, primary and secondary schools and the national rural employment guarantee scheme administrators, to conduct a third party audit of their proactive disclosures under the Right To Information Act (RTI) to assess their level of compliance.

The Act calls on public authorities to suo-motu disclose information so that the public has to minimally use this Act to obtain information. In April 2013, the government had issued guidelines to Union ministries and departments to be proactive in diseminating large amounts of information through various mediums to comply with section 4 of the Act. It had issued guidelines and asked state governments to do the same for better implementation of suo motu disclosures at various levels.

The Centre has been actively pushing information disemination under the Act. The Central Information Commission received 33,922 appeals complaints and disposed of 23,112 under RTI in 2011-12. Under its The government has also launched the RTI Online website for all Central ministries to enable people to file online RTI applications and first appeals and pay the fees online.