‘Hesitancy to give info big threat to RTI’

Continued reluctance and resistance on the part of public authorities to declare suo moto information to citizens remains the biggest threat faced by the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, a sub-committee constituted to undertake an in-depth analysis of problems during its Annual Convention 2008 has found.

The report states: “RTI serves best when the citizens feel the least need to use it. Many applications will be rendered redundant when public authorities suo moto embrace transparency.”

“While there is some improvement in the macro level of information-disbursal by the government, a lot still needs to be done to disburse information at the micro level. Public authorities should develop a system to disburse information on hospitals, schools, and wards,” said state chief information commissioner Suresh Joshi.