Report card on RTI Responsiveness

Report card on RTI Responsiveness

News: Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) has released a report card of Responsiveness under RTI (Right to Information) Act 2021-22, which shows that Tamil Nadu has been the worst performing RTI responsiveness, furnishing only 14% of the information sought.  

What is RTI Act?
• The Right to Information Act 2005 mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.
• The basic object of the Right to Information Act is to empower the citizens, promote transparency and accountability in the working of the Government, contain corruption, and make our democracy work for the people in a real sense.

Key Findings:
• Maharashtra was second-worst, sharing 23% of the information asked for.
• Only 10 ICs provided full information in response to the RTI applications filed as part of this assessment. These included Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand and northeastern States of Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura.
• The SIC of Bihar, which had failed to provide any information under the RTI Act for the assessments published in 2020 and 2021, significantly improved its performance and furnished 67% of the information sought.
• A large number of ICs across the country were returning cases without passing orders. For example, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh returned around 40% of the appeals or complaints received by them. Of the 18 Information Commissioners the assessment found that 11 had returned appeals or complaints without passing any orders.
• Several ICs have an extremely low rate of disposal per commissioner. For instance, the SIC of West Bengal had an annual average disposal rate of 222 cases per commissioner - each commissioner effectively disposing of less than one case a day - even though more than 10,000 cases were pending.
• Of all the 29 ICs, only the CIC has adopted a norm regarding the number of appeals or complaints to be disposed of by each commissioner in one year.
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