Government ignoring monthly reports: RTI

What's the best way to ensure your government works? The answer may lie in the monthly summaries that every ministry and department must submit to the cabinet secretariat on the work they've been doing. But when transparency activist Venkatesh Nayak attempted to obtain reports for 27 departments under 10 ministries through the Right to Information Act, only six replied in full. More than half didn't bother writing back at all. And some replied without giving him the information.

Nayak, programme coordinator with Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, is now set to petition the government to disclose these monthly summaries on all ministry and department websites. Filing monthly summaries is mandatory under the 'Rules of procedure in regard to proceedings of the cabinet,' a manual compiled in 1987 which itself was kept secret until Nayak battled the administration through RTI in order to get hold of a copy.

Nayak filed an RTI query in August this year, asking for monthly summaries for departments under key ministries such as home, finance, defence, external affairs, social justice and water resources. While Nayak received the maximum number of replies from departments under the ministry of finance, his applications were rejected by the ministry of defence.

The department of defence under the ministry of defence rejected the RTI application to provide monthly reports on the grounds that it was exempt from disclosing information under section 8 (1) (a) of the RTI act, dealing with national security. "This is a complete misreading of the clause. Information is exempt only if disclosure will affect national security. The department did not bother to explain how the entire monthly summary attracts this provision," says Nayak.

Ironically the department of personnel and training, which looks after the implementation of the RTI and the Lokpal Act, did not reply to the RTI query on monthly submissions.

Strangely, while Nayak did not receive any information from the departments of disinvestment and financial services under the ministry of finance, sister departments such as expenditure, revenue and economic affairs were prompt with their response.

"One of the reasons for what was believed to be policy paralysis under the previous government may have been a lack of adequate monitoring of the work that each department did. If a report does not come at all, or a report with the word 'nil' is filed, how will the cabinet secretariat or the prime minister even get to know if work is progressing well or has slowed down?" asks Nayak.