According to PMO’s central public information officer (CPIO) Sanjukta Ray, post-Anna Hazare agitation, the three-member desk is piled up with queries on the Lokpal bill.
The number of Right to Information (RTI) applications filed with the prime minister’s office (PMO) have increased a whopping 8,402% in five years. The nature of questions vary from civic to strategic issues, officials said.
According to PMO’s central public information officer (CPIO) Sanjukta Ray, post-Anna Hazare agitation, the three-member desk is piled up with queries on the Lokpal bill.
She said the information counter received 4,081 queries till December last year alone, compared to 48 applications filed in 2005, when the act came into force
Despite the Central Information Commission and state level bodies to do the job, people approach the PMO directly. It may be recalled that the Central Information Commission has already directed the secretariat of parliament, all the legislative assemblies and municipal authorities to put in place mechanism under the RTI Act to accept the aggrieved people’s applications and inform them about their queries addressed to their elected representatives.
This judgment came in 2009 on the appeals filed by the representatives of Amethi and Rae Bareli questioning Congress MPs — Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi — about the welfare work in the constituencies. Under the present scheme of governance, MPs and MLAs and councilors do not have their individual secretariat, thus people have no recourse to evoke RTI to elicit information from them.
As per the act, the public information officer should respond within 30 days of the receipt of an application, failing which the applicant should make the first appeal to the appellate authority of the same department.
Also, the department of personnel and training has processed 14,292 applications in the last five years.
— With Agency inputs
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