Committee recommends recovering fine under RTI from official’s salary
29 Jun, 2013
A high level committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh has recommended that fine imposed on a public authority for not providing information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act should be recovered at the time of preparing his salary statement. Further, the Committee recommended recovery of fine imposed on government departments for violating RTI Act should be reviewed monthly and the respective report should be sent to the government. It also recommended appointing a nodal officer to ensure the recovery of fine.
The committee, with secretary of law department, administrative reforms department, personnel department, secretariat administration and secretary of UPSIC as its members, recommended that departments must comply with Section 4 of RTI Act which mandates voluntary disclosure of information on their websites. Apart from this, the committee also directed for appointment of a full time secretary in the UP State Information Commission (UPSIC).
Acting on the recommendations, the Administrative Reforms Department (ARD) has issued directions to all state government departments to comply with the RTI norms and submit compliance report.