Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Mar 17: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today announced 100% Right to Information (RTI) On-line facility with all the Public Authorities including PSUs etc., numbering about two thousand, getting aligned with RTI On-line portal before the end of this month.
At a function organized by the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) to present Excellence Awards to Ministries and Departments with outstanding performance in RTI disposal, Dr Jitendra Singh said, even though the RTI On-line portal was established by the earlier UPA government, there were less than one hundred Public Authorities connected to this portal when the present government took over in May 2014, but the last two years witnessed a fast-track progress and now, all the two thousand Public Authorities and both the Citizen – interface as well as the Public Authority – interface for the RTI are fully On-line. While a citizen can now conveniently file RTI application On-line and also make On-line payment of the RTI fee at any time of the day from anywhere including from abroad, he said, the public authority interface was challenged with the task of aligning with diverse public authorities associated with the union government as well as union territories, which has also now been brought on the portal.
In addition, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the RTI portal would offer the bilingual option for filing the application either in English or in Hindi and the disposal will be within a stipulated timeline.
Dr Jitendra Singh appealed to the GAD and Personnel Departments of various State Governments to follow the example of DoPT and expedite instituting of an RTI On-line portal covering all the public services. This, he said, is in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s priority agenda of “maximum governance, minimum Government” with citizen – centric focus as also the transformation to ‘Digital India’.
Dr Jitendra Singh also called for holding of public awareness programmes to educate masses about optimum utility of hi-tech RTI facility. He said, a major portion of information related to Government of India is already in public domain or on website and therefore, RTIs relating to seek such information can be avoided. Similarly, he suggested some mechanism to avoid RTI on a subject or information which has already been revealed to be in public domain through an earlier RTI.
On the occasion, awards and certificates of excellence for outstanding performance in RTI on-line performance were given among others to Delhi Police, Ministry of External Affairs, Department of Posts, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Life Insurance Corporation, Cabinet Secretariat, Staff Selection Commission, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
Union Secretary DoPT B.P. Sharma, Chairman Staff Selection Commission Ashim Khurana and senior officers of DoPT, banking sector and NIC attended the award ceremony.
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