DoPT offers one month internship to undergraduate law students
12 Nov, 2013The Department of Personnel and Training has issued office memorandum (OM) vide F. No 1/22 /2013 – IR giving details of the internship programme for the law undergraduate students for the year 2012-2013. The OM describes the Guidelines on Internship for Undergraduates pursuing five year integrated course in Law or graduates pursuing Bachelor's degree in Law under the Centrally sponsored Scheme on “Improving Transparency and Accountability in government through effective implementation of Right to Information Act".
The Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India, is the nodal Ministry for the Right to Information Act. It is administering a Plan scheme titled 'Improving Transparency and Accountability in Government through effective Implementation of the Right to Information Act'. The primary goal of the scheme is to contribute towards more accountable and transparent government and it has several components including programmes for awareness generation, training and e-governance initiatives for RTI for achieving the purpose.
Department of Personnel and Training has been conducting Internship Programme for the Ministries and Departments in the Government of India, which is beneficial both to the Departments and the interns. This will help the Ministry/ Department consolidate and document its experience in the implementation of RTI, its successes, constraints in implementation, identify the areas which need more attention, address the gap areas and suggest what more needs to be done to help achieve the objectives of the Act. The interns would be familiarized with the process of seeking information and enabling access to information under the RTI regime.
Under the scheme, DOPT is offering short-term internships to Undergraduates who are in the second year pursuing five year integrated course in Law or graduates in the first year pursuing three year graduation course in Law from a recognised and reputed University to conduct an analysis of RTI Applications in select public authorities.
The RTI Internship is being offered to analyze a sample of the RTI applications received in the year 2012-2013 by select public authorities. The analysis of the applications would aim to get an overall picture of the applications received and do an indepth study of the information sought and the response by the CPIO/ Public Authority. Templates of the expected outputs are given by the DoPT.
It covers both, the preliminary analysis of the Public Authority and the detailed analysis of the selected RTI applications. The interns would also study the status of suo motu disclosure of the Ministry/Department allotted to them for their internship and would submit a report in this regard, as per the guidelines.
The internships would be for duration of one month starting 1st January, 2014. The internship programme is neither a job nor any such assurance for a job in the Department of Personnel of Training or any other Ministry/ Department in Government. Travel costs of interns will be reimbursed on actual basis up to Rs. 5000/- on submission of reports. Interns will be provided with the necessary logistics support i.e, office space and photocopy facility. The Interns will be required to submit to the Department of Personnel and Training and the selected Ministry/ Department a report on the areas of study. Certificate of internship Certificates will be issued on satisfactory completion of their internships and on submission of their Reports.
As per the OM issued under the signature of Mr. Sandeep Jain, Director (IR), a detailed methodology has been prescribed for the study. Hopefully, this step would lead to increased understanding of the working of the RTI Act in the country.
For a copy of the OM, please click to the link - http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/dopt-circular-2013