Has someone hacked your email a/c too, or are you Loksatta
Sanjeevani ? My reply to this post will depend upon yr response.
"Section 4(1)(b) stipulates that each department provide to the public
a handbook which includes at least 17 prescribed items of
information .. " ????
Sarbajit
On Nov 3, 8:25 am, "C J Karira" <cjkar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We are imperfect. We cannot expect perfect government. ~ William Howard.
>
> but, Loksatta Sanjeevani team has not left that thought at that. It began
> it's journey to change the so called 'imperfect' to 'perfect' and the
> 'idle' to 'working' - the attempts never turned into failures. Like a lot
> activities that were performed earlier, Loksatta Sanjeevani has successfully
> completed one more activity recently. This is one is slightly
> different.....and significantly better. Targeting a single section of RTI
> law, it has gone ahead to file 500 RTIs.
>
> Unbelievable ? Wait a min ..We have taken enough time to come up with stats
> and photos of the event to make you believe the power of RTI or perhaps a
> healthy team..
>
> Wanna know more ?...You surely can..!Read on..!!
>
> Why did we start this :
>
> On the eve of the 5th anniversary of the enactment of the RTI Act (October
> 12, 2010), the Loksatta Sanjeevani team has taken up a massive campaign of
> filing 500 RTI applications. These applications have been filed with ALL
> state and secretariat heads of departments and some Nalgonda, Rangareddy and
> Hyderabad district offices. Significantly, all 500 applications are based on
> a single section of the RTI law - Section 4(1)(b). This section stipulates
> that each department provide to the public a handbook which includes at
> least 17 prescribed items of information both online, on the department
> website, and as hard copies in the offices. A sample of these information
> items is as follows: details of the department's organization, functions and
> duties, employee powers and responsibilities, the directory of all
> employees, procedure followed in the decision making process, including
> channels of supervision and accountability, monthly remuneration received by
> each of its officers and employees, budget allocations, with details of all
> plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made. This
> information is expected to be updated regularly and as necessary. This
> mandatory information is the key to transparency in the system -preventing
> obscurity and the accompanying corruption and ultimately, empowering
> citizens to make officials accountable.
>
> The Loksatta Sanjeevani team observed that even after 5 years, very few
> Government offices have actually implemented this important RTI law.
> Starting with a training session on September 25th, 12 team members have
> been filing the 500 applications.
>
> Background:
>
> In discussing the Indian government, it is a common refrain that in many
> cases, the right policies are in place, but the execution is what is
> lacking. And the execution is mostly in the hands of government departments
> and officials. RTI is an instrument that allows citizens to hold the
> officials to account for the execution aspect and prevent both laxity and
> corruption. RTI was achieved through a tremendous campaign. However, as can
> be expected, most government departments have been very lax about conforming
> to the requirements of RTI, for the combined reasons of inertia and vested
> interest in maintaining status quo. Clearly, achieving RTI was not enough.
> It will take a sustained campaign of (a) vigilance and petitioning to coax
> and/or force all departments to conform to their duties with respect to RTI
> and (b) spread awareness among citizens about the tremendous gains to be had
> from actually exercising their RTI.
>
> Loksatta Sanjeevani's vision and effort:
>
> Everything takes money, and the team has spent about Rs. 16,000 of their
> personal funds in this effort. They have gone ahead with the understanding
> that implementing Section 4(1)(b) will make all the critical information
> necessary for making government efficient, benefiting both the citizens and
> officials. Also, it can be expected to reduce the number of RTI applications
> by half, since the basic information is available beforehand. It has been a
> great learning experience for Sanjeevani team members, who now have an
> in-depth awareness about several departments, and are working hard to
> disseminate the same to the wider public.
>
> Event coverage in Eenadu news paper:
>
> http://www.loksattasanjeevani.in/2010/11/filing-500-rtis-loksatta-san...
> -in.html
>
> Team members : - Election - Santosh - Bharat - Avanish - Uday Bhaskar -
> Narasimha - Madhu - Pradeep - Srinivas - Savan - Subbu - Azeez
>
> Response:
>
> Every Department office has a designated Public Information Officer (PIO)
> who is responsible for providing the requested handbook. As per the RTI Act,
> the response should be immediate, as these documents should have been
> prepared by Oct 12th 2005. However, we have received only 83 replies in one
> month, out of which only 23 replies have provided us sec4(1)(b) manuals .We
> are expecting that most responses will arrive only after a second appeal. A
> positive response was received from the AP Labour Welfare Dept, Andhra
> Pradesh, who first provided complete handbook/manual and then made it
> available online. A small number of offices have responded with the correct
> and complete information. Some PIOs have confessed a complete lack of
> awareness of the requirement of Section 4(1)(b) and made phone calls
> requesting Sanjeevani members to visit their office and provide directions
> for preparing the handbook. Surprisingly, several officials have demanded
> money (upto Rs 5000) for CDs, postage, translation etc. A few offices flatly
> denied to provide the necessary information. Majority do not have
> information in Telugu language. We have also received many weird replies.
> Few local offices informed that this information is not available at local
> level and asked us to contact Head offices and Head offices, on the other
> hand, asked us to contact local offices, as they can't maintain information
> related to all offices.
>
> Loksatta Sanjeevani follow-up to response:
>
> The team's experience has been that on being confronted with the exact
> provisions of the RTI Act and making it clear that denial and intimidation
> will not work, many PIOs quickly change their attitude. The team will be
> filing first and second appeals for the requested information. And
> parallely, we are planning to complaint directly to the Information
> Commission under section 18.
>
> Sanjeevani promises to send a detailed mail on the responses received and
> the actions being taken based on them.
>
> To know updates on our activities , please follow us on Twitter @
> LSPSanjeevani .
>
> This has also been updated at our blog :
>
> http://www.loksattasanjeevani.in/2010/11/mega-event-of-year-filing-50....
> html
>
> Warm Regards,
>
> Loksatta Sanjeevani Team
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