Inefficiency of Odisha Information Commission again exposed No Annual Report prepared or produced in Assembly since last 3 years Dear friends As per section 25 of the RTI Act, Odisha Information Commission is duty-bound to prepare an Annual Report in every year and produce it to State Govt. tos lay in Assembly. The information Commission shall collect all required information and compile it and prepare the report. Under section 25(3) of the Act, the information to be produced in the Annual Report are: a) Details of applications filed in the office of Public Authority b) Denial of information to RTI Applicants and its reasons thereof. c) Details of Appeals filed in the Information Commission, type of appeals and its result. d) Disciplinary proceedings taken against any officer while implementing provisions of the RTI Act. e) Details of fees collected under RTI Act. f) Information about any extraordinary work done by the public authorities while implementing various provisions and achieving objectives of the Act. g) Recommendation made by the Information Commission. When Sri D.N.Padhi was the Chief Information Commissioner, the preparation and publication of Annual Report was found one year late. But during regime of Sri Tarun Kanti Mishra, State Chief Information Commissioner who assumed office since 21st November’2010, the Commission has not produced the Annual Report for the year 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14. Even the presence of Sri Jagadanand Mohanty, so-called Civil Society man in the Commission ( retired since August 2013) has not ensured it to happen. That’s why RTI Activists since 2005 have been exposing and bringing it to the limelight that these people are Sarakari Agents and inefficient to be Information Commissioner and lacks minimum caliber and acumen to be information Commissioner in Odisha. Interestingly, Sri Tarun Kanti Mishra is taking Rs. 2 lakhs per month from state exchequer to deliver justice to the people and producing annual report, which is the Means of Verification of their performance over the years. As there is no mechanism under the Act for third party monitoring or performance appraisal, the office of the Commission has become holy cow for useless people and post-retirement benefit for colonial bureaucrats. It is the time for citizens to monitor their activities and expose their ugly character without inviting them to any function as guest. This practice should come to end in Odisha in the greater interest of the people. We are going to file a complaint to Governor, Odisha seeking action against these Information Commissioners and dismiss them on the ground of inefficiency under section 17 of the RTI Act. With regards Biswa Ranjan Panda
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 06:28:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015