CIC to rank ministries on disclosure of information

NEW DELHI: Name and shame is the new strategy the Central Information Commission ( CIC) has decided to employ to make the errant government departments fall in line and voluntarily disclose information.

With central ministries and government departments refusing to disclose information on websites and through other published material, the transparency watchdog has decided to take corrective measures.

CIC will start a new annual ranking system for central ministries and departments to rate their disclosures on websites and content in other government publications. The ranking system would name the defaulters and would be introduced this year.

The move has been prompted by the repeated findings in CIC’s data collection exercise from public authorities. Over the years, ministries and departments have refused to update their websites and give updated information to the common man. Section 4 of RTI Act lays down “Obligations of public authorities”, which include publishing of particulars of the organization, powers and duties of its officials, documents held by it, a directory of officials, monthly remuneration received by its officials, and other details.

Section 4(2) of the Act says, “It shall be the constant endeavor of every public authority to take steps… to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information.”

A senior CIC official told ET, “Section 4 is the key to transparency. If basic information is available in public domain, the RTI load will reduce drastically. In fact even the second appeals pending in CIC would come down. But the problem is that the ministries and departments just do not give out mandatory information.”

CIC does not have any punitive powers under RTI Act which can be used to bring errant departments to book. “What can we do? Nothing. So we have decided to name and shame them. This way there would be some pressure on the ministries to spruce up their act,” said the official.

CIC would identify parameters on which the disclosure of a department would be gauged. “This is a desktop exercise. So we are planning to rope in former information commissioners to help us in ranking ministries,” the official said.