Citizen-friendly rules under RTI Act 2005 required,

say the Civil Society Groups in a  State-level Consultation at Bhubaneswar

Following the enactment of Right to Information Act 2005 on 15^th June last, the Central and State Govts including Orissa across the country are now briskly busy over the preparations including the framing of rules so as to meet the statutory target of it’s full scale operationalisation with effect from the 120^th day of the enactment i.e., 12^th Oct.’2005. Though the Orissa Govt. have made definite headway in this regard, the draft rules are yet to be advertised for public comments. The rules, as everyone knows, are supposed not only to give an operational mechanism for realizing the letter and spirit of a law but also to plug in it’s loopholes and missing links, if there be any.

Having understood the critical significance of the rules to be made under the RTI Act, especially in a State like Orissa where poor, Dalit and tribal people constitute a bulk of our population, the Right to Food Campaign (a Network of Civil Society Organisations, NGOs and Activists) organized a two-day State-level Consultation at Red Cross Bhawan, Bhunbaneswar on 12^th and 13^th Sept.’ 05 supported by Action Aid, Orissa to deliberate and resolve on the kind of the appropriate rules to be made for the purpose.

It was attended and addressed among others by eminent academicians, social scientists, jurists, administrators, media leaders and social activists from all over the State besides the legislators like Shri Mohan Jena, MP and Shri Panchanan Kanungo, Former Minister of State for Finance Orissa and Local Self-Government leaders like Mr.Prasant Jagdev President Khurda Zilla Parishad and Ms.Sasmita Behera Chairperson Talcher Panchayat Samiti.

Media leaders who spoke in the Consultation were Mr. Rabi Das Editor ‘The Paryabekshak’, Mr.Nageswar Patnaik of Economic Times Orissa, Mr. Bhaskar Parichha Editor The Dainik Bhaskar and Mr.Bismay Mohanty President Small and Medium Newspapers Association.

Eminent academicians like Prof.Surya Narayan Mishra of Dept of Political Science Utkal University and Professor Sri Digambar Satapathy, Retd. Director of Orissa Text-Book Bureau  while chairing two technical sessions respectively had given their views too.

The panel of senior bureaucrats of the State who had deliberated in the Consultation included Shri Aurobindo Behera Commissioner-cum-Secretary Rural Development, Shri Manmohan Praharaj, Addl. D.G. Orissa Police (Intelligence) and Shri Digambar Mohanty, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Information and Public Relations Dept. who is also the State’s nodal officer for operationalising RTI.

The paneslists from the judiciary and quasi-judiciary side were Mr. A.B.Tripathy, Special Rapporteur to National Human Rights Commission, Justice Shri Himadri Mohapatra Member State Human Rights Commission, Shri Dharanidhar Nayak President Orissa Bar Council and Sri Kedar Nath Jena Senior Advocate Orissa High Court and a veteran consumer rights activist of the State.

Eminent social leaders who addressed the Workshop included Shri A.V. Swamy of Viswas Nuapada,  Sri Achyut Das of Agragamee Kasipur, Sri Jagadanand Member-Secretary CYSD, Sri Suchit Ranjan Singh of REALS Bhubaneswar and Sri Lalit Kumar Mishra of Cuttack District NGO Coordination Committee.  About a total of 200 activists from several districts of the State had actively participated in it’s deliberations.

Chairing the inaugural session Ms.Supriya Akerkar, Regional Manager Action Aid Orissa set the tone for the deliberations made in the Workshop. In a draft note circulated among the participants she emphasized the need for Orissa to have appropriate Rules under the RTI Act to enable its poor and marginalized sections of population to access with least cost and botheration all the official information that affected their livelihood. Specifically she pleaded for reviewing the old, outdated laws and rules of the State like the Government Servant Conduct Rules 1959 that upheld official secrecy, to bring them in harmony with the RTI Act which lays stress on transparency and openness of the Government before the people.

Sri Pradip Pradhan, the Convener of the Workshop in his introductory note informed the house that its main purpose was to elicit opinions from the civil society groups on the contents of the Rules to be made under the new Act for the State and thereby help the Government formulate the same based upon the inputs so gathered.        

Mr.Chitta Behera a social scientist spoke on some loopholes and self-contradictions in the Act iself, which in his opinion could be effectively sorted out by way of formulation of suitable Rules by both appropriate Governments and competent authorities. Taking a strong exception to the latest attempt by the Ministry of Personnel, GOI to exclude ‘the notings on file’ from the definition of information, Mr. Behera observed that such an arbitrarily skewed definition by the nodal Ministry for the whole country is not only grossly incompatible with the definition of ‘public document’ as given in the age-old statute like Evidence Act 1872 (Sections 74-76), but also a blatant negation of such definitions of ‘information’ ‘right to information’ and ‘record’ as provided under the very Section 2 of the RTI Act 2005 itself. Mr.Behera however welcomed the initiative of the said Ministry in providing on its website a Template for Information Hand-book, to be filled up and published thereon by the scheduled date of 12^th October by each public authority as a matter of suo moto disclosure as made obligatory under the Section 4 of the new Act.      

An important highlight of the Workshop was the talk by Sri Digambar Mohanty, Secretary I & PR Dept. Orissa who is also the nodal officer for operationalisation of RTI in Orissa. Sri Mohanty provided in broad detail the progress already made by the Government of Orissa in compliance with various obligations entrusted to the States under the Act. He informed that arrangements for appointment of Public Information Officers from Secretariate upto GP level, selection of Information Commissioners, suo moto disclosure by public authorities and publication and circulation of the RTI Act are almost complete awaiting a formal announcement only. Sri Mohanty further informed that the training programme for the Govt officers has been entrusted to the Gopabandhu Academy of Administration. He welcomed the initiative of the civil society groups on organizing such Consultation and looked forward to their suggestions for the Rules under the Act, which are going to be announced soon by the Government.           

Following the deliberations spread in two days, the concluding session under the chairmanship of Prof.Digambar Satapathy asked the organizers of the Workshop to pool together the various concrete suggestions for Rule-making under the RTI Act in Orissa, that had emerged in course of the deliberations and present the same in the form of a Memorandum to the State Government at the earliest for the latter’s consideration. The representatives of various civil society groups who spoke in the concluding session were of the consensus that a series of district and block level awareness and training workshops need be organized hereafter throughout the State involving both public authorities and common people to popularize the RTI Act 2005 amongst all with a view to ensure its successful implementation in Orissa. Mr.Biren Nayak of Action Aid in his paper on RTI and Public Hearing proposed that the Public Hearings on various developmental schemes should be organized at grass root level from 12^th October 2005 onwards using RTI as an effective tool and his proposal was unanimously seconded by all the participants.   

A 14-point Memorandum accordingly was prepared for submission to the Chief Minister Orissa under the signature of the eminent panelists from the civil society.

News Prepared by- Pradip Pradhan, Convener, Right to Food Campaign, Orissa