RTI an effective tool to combat corruption, says CIC Satyanand Mishra

NEW DELHI: Chief Information Commissioner Satyanand Mishra today said the Right to Information Act has proved to be a highly effective tool to combat corruption.

"RTI is helping in a great way to fight corruption. It has achieved much more than what could be achieved by registering FIRs and cases through police and various investigative agencies," Mishra said while inaugurating a workshop on sensitising Staff Selection Commission (SSC) officials about RTI matters here.

Noting that the effectiveness of the transparency law in accessing information from government departments was hard to imagine at the time of its enactment, he said, "No one would have thought over its effect then (when the Act was made). It has proved to be an effective tool for fighting corruption."

The two-day workshop is being organised by National Productivity Council (NPC).

Terming the Public Information Officers associated with SSC as the "ambassadors of the commission", Mishra said what they lacked was a sense of pride and belonging to the commission.

"You are the ambassadors of the commission. Your attitude would reflect the attitude of the commission. But it has been noticed that the sense of pride and belonging to the commission collectively and individually is missing," he said.

The CIC also called for shedding the rampant attitude of passing the buck to others while dealing with RTI related matters.

"There is also a growing disease of passing the buck and shifting of responsibility. It is very rampant. Such attitude should be shed," he said.

Giving the officials various tips on how to handle RTI applications, he told them that a mechanism should be developed to streamline disclosure of information in a particular timeframe.

S K Sarkar, Additional Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), called for generating greater awareness among various stakeholders and in changing the attitude of the government employees.

"DoPT is looking to improve some of the thrust areas like capacity building of officials, generating awareness among various stakeholders, changing attitude of government servants, lack of resources and reducing the trust deficit among stakeholders like government, general public, NGOs and media," he said.

SSC Chairman N K Raghupathy, in his presidential address, highlighted the steps taken by the commission to establish transparency.