DOPT: Abide by with Section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act

DOPT: Abide by with Section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act

The department of personnel and training (DoPT) has written to all central government ministries asking them to comply with Section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act and suo motu disclose all governance related information in public domain.

No.1/34/2013-IR
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel. Public Grievances and Pensions
Department of Personnel and Training

North Block, New Delhi-1
Dated: 29th June 2015

Office Memorandum

Subject: Implementation of Suo Motu Disclosure under Section 4 of RTI Act, 2005

Attention is invited to detailed guidelines on implementation of suo motu disclosure under Section 4 of RTI Act, 2005 issued vide this department’s O.M. No.1/6/2011-IR dated 15.4.2013. Subsequently, a Committee of experts consisting of Shri A.N.Tiwari, Chief Information Commissioner(Retd) and Dr. M.M.Ansari, Information

Commissioner(Retd) (of Central Information Commission) was constituted to recommend, interalia, measures to further strengthen implementation of Section 4 of the RTI Act, 2005. The Committee has, interalia, made the following recommendations which have been duly accepted by the competent authority:-

1) All the details of the public authority may be uploaded on its website. Access to information should be made user-friendly for which appropriate information technology infrastructure should be suitably designed. developed and operationalised.

2) All the training modules for professional upgradation of employees should incorporate matter relating to the virtues of transparency and open government and RTI law.

3) In order to minimise the burden of servicing RTI applications. the public authorities with high public dealings should put in place an effective system to redress the grievances of affected persons. At the sub-organisational levels, there should be cooperation and coordination between the Central Public lnforrnation Officers and the officers responsible for addressing public grievances.

4) In order to reduce the number of RTI applications relating to service matters, the information relating to recruitment, promotion and transfers should be brought into public domain promptly.

5) The retention and maintenance of specific documents for specified duration should be clearly spelt by each public authority in respect of its documents.

2. All the public authorities are requested to follow the above recommendations.

(Sandeep Jain)
Director

Source: http://ccis.nic.in/WriteReadData/CircularPortal/D2/D02rti/RTI-29062015.pdf