DoPT issues memorandum to central ministries for non- compliance of its directive
6 Apr, 2013Section 4(1)(b) Every public authority shall publish within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of this Act,- (i) the particulars of its organisation, functions and duties; (ii) the powers and duties of its officers and employees; (iii) the procedure followed in the decision making process, including channels of supervision and accountability; (iv) the norms set by it for the discharge of its functions; (v) the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions; (vi) a statement of the categories of documents that are held by it or under its control; (vii) the particulars of any arrangement that exists for consultation with, or representation by, the members of the public in relation to the formulation of its policy or implementation thereof; (viii) a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies consisting of two or more persons constituted as its part or for the purpose of its advice, and as to whether meetings of those boards, councils, committees and other bodies are open to the public, or the minutes of such meetings are accessible for public; (ix) a directory of its officers and employees; (x) the monthly remuneration received by each of its officers and employees, including the system of compensation as provided in its regulations; (xi) the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made; (xii) the manner of execution of subsidy programmes, including the amounts allocated and the details of beneficiaries of such programmes; (xiii) particulars of recipients of concessions, permits or authorisations granted by it; (xiv) details in respect of the information, available to or held by it, reduced in an electronic form; (xv) the particulars of facilities available to citizens for obtaining information, including the working hours of a library or reading room, if maintained for public use; (xvi) the names, designations and other particulars of the Public Information Officers; (xvii) such other information as may be prescribed and thereafter update these publications every year; of the RTI Act prescribes 17 manuals which are to be proactively disclosed by all the public authorities at regular intervals through various means of communications. Various central government departments have received frequent applications under the Right to Information Act seeking details of official tours undertaken by ministers and other officials. The DoPT website reveals that Rs 5.30 crore has been spent in 18 visits by various officials to places like Switzerland, Zurich and Kuala Lumpur etc. between October and December 2012.
In September, 2012, the Department of Personnel & training (DoPT) had directed all central government ministries to make public details of foreign and domestic tours undertaken by ministers and senior officers. The details like nature of the tour, period, places visited, number of people included in the official delegation and total cost of such travel undertaken by a minister or senior officer were to be put in public domain. However, many ministries have not been disclosing such details or are providing only partial information and are also not updating it regularly. The DoPT has taken a strict view of non- compliance of its directive and has issued an official memorandum asking central ministries to disclose tour details of their officials in public domain.