Corridors of power insensitive to RTI queries

​Hyderabad: It appears that the Telangana Secretariat does not care a hoot for the Right to Information Act.

Even eleven years after the Central enactment came into vogue, the PIOs (Public Information Officers) of almost all the departments in the Secretariat, which is ruled by All India Services officers, choose to ignore the RTI applications though they are bound to provide information within 30 days.

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A series of applications submitted by The Hans India under RTI Act to 18 key State government departments lies unattended even after the stipulated 30 days for furnishing the requested information

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Most of the PIOs prefer to stick to the age-old British era’s Official Secrets Act keeping the information secret rather than providing it to the public.

Poor response to the series of RTI applications forwarded by The Hans India to elicit information from the PIOs of various departments in Telangana Secretariat proved it beyond any doubt.

The Preamble of the Right to Information Act 2005 clearly points out: Whereas democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed.

The Section 7 (1) of the Right to Information Act clearly states that information should be provided to the applicants within 30 days after receiving the application.

Till date, there is no exemption to the RTI Act either by the Centre or the State government.

It may be recalled that The Hans India published on October 23 a report highlighting that the officials of 30 departments did not upload more than 7,000 GOs during the nine-month period from January 1 to September 31, 2016.

There is clear evidence that the PIOs received the applications for information sent on October 26 and November 1 but they never cared to provide information after the lapse of 30 days.

The Hans India sought information from the PIOs of 30 departments in the Secretariat regarding the details of GOs which were not uploaded in the official government website, reasons for not uploading, among other information.

When the officials failed to discharge the statutory duty, at least the Ministers concerned should look into the lapse if they had any grip over their departments.

At least, 18 departments out of the 30 departments did not respond to the RTI applications. The following are the departments which did not respond.

1. Agriculture and Cooperation Department 2. Disaster Management 3. Environment, Forest, Science and Technology Department 4. General Administration Department 5. Higher Education Department 6.Health, Medical and Family Welfare Department 7. Home Department, 8. Housing Department 9. Irrigation and Command Area Development Department 10. Industries and Commerce Department 11. Information Technology, Electronics and Communications Department 12.

Labour, Employment, Training and Factories Department 13. Law Department 14. Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department 15. Minority Welfare Department 16. Planning Department, 17. Revenue Department 18.

Transport, Roads and Buildings Department. Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao leads the pack with the miserable failure of the PIOs of the departments of General Administration and Minority Welfare in providing information to the RTI applicants.

He is followed by Deputy Chief Minister Mohammad Mahmood Ali, Revenue Minister Eatala Rajender, Forest Minister Jogu Ramanna, Industries and IT Minister K T Rama Rao,

Home Minister Nayini Narasimha Reddy, Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao, Health Minister C Lakshma Reddy, Housing and Law Minister A Indrakaran Reddy and Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy.