AP info panel disposes of 89% appeals, complaints

Vijayawada: The AP Information Commission disposed of 89 per cent of appeals and complaints which comes up to 21,211 appeals against total 23,618 complaints received by the commission and 2,407 complaints are at various stages of disposal.

It may be noted AP Information Commission was constituted on August 11, 2017, after bifurcation of the state. At present, the commission is served by six information commissioners: Repala Srinivasa Rao, Chief Information Commissioner (I/c), BV Ramana Kumar, Katta Janardhana Rao, Ilapuram Raja, U Hariprasada Reddy and K Chenna Reddy. Appointment of Chief Information Commissioner and one information commissioner is under process with state government and they are expected to join soon.

In an interactive session on Right To Information Act at AP Information Commission office in Mangalagiri, the Chief Information Commissioner (I/C) Repala Srinivasa Rao, information commissioners Katta Janardhana Rao and K Chenna Reddy said this year 2,943 appeals were received and the APIC disposed of 4,290 and 574 complaints were received and the commission disposed of 1,080 complaints till date which indicates that the APIC has been disposing of more appeals and complaints that it received because there are some backlogs due to pandemic.

The state information commissioners said that the state government had agreed to observe third Friday of every month as RTI day across the state. The APIC is planning to rope in the law colleges to conduct legal awareness camps in villages exclusively covering RTI Act. They said that as per the global Right to Information ratings research conducted by evaluating 61 indicators, India scored 128 points out of 150.

The state information commissioners said that as part of RTI week celebrations they are going to conduct one day workshop on RTI Act and its implementation, RTI Clearance Day, workshop on awareness of RTI Act and RTI awareness programme at district level.