Reward of Rs. 25,000/- for documenting best practices on RTI in use by the public authorities
17 Jul, 2013Shri Manoj Joshi, Joint Secretary, Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) chaired a meeting in his chamber on July 15, 2013 to discuss RTI related issues. Shri K.G. Verma, Joint Secretary (Retd); Dr. N. Bhaskara Rao, Centre for Media Studies; Anjali Bhardwaj, Satark Nagrik Sangathan; Dr. R.K Verma, Additional Commissioner (Customs and Central Excise); representatives of NCPRI, PRIA and CHRI; Sandeep Jain (Deputy Secretary) and Sarita Nair (Under Secretary) attended the meeting.
- Earlier, vide 1/3/2013-IR dated May 14, 2013 the DoPT had invited write-ups from citizens across the country to send the best practices adopted by the public authorities in respect of RTI. A lump sum reward of Rs. 25,000/- was declared for 20 best write-ups which were to be put together as a Compendium. Shri Joshi informed that the last date for the same has been extended and invited all to submit the same, preferably within a week. The objective of bringing out the compendium is to document the prevalent best practices so that it may inspire others to emulate and improvise the same. Therefore, the practices in current use need to be highlighted as an entry rather than dwelling upon what ought to be adopted. The original letter inviting the write ups from citizens can be seen at link below which also describes the way the entry should be written and submitted. Link - http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/dopt/1_3_2013-IR-14052013.pdf
- The issue of making a database of the case laws relating to the RTI Act, 2005 from where the cases can be searched as per demand was discussed.
- The need for research projects in respect of RTI Act, 2005 was discussed.
- Shri Joshi deliberated on the difficulties faced by the RTI applicants and the need to set up “help desks” for them. He invited proposals from the NGO’s for some sort of a partnership for implementing the idea.
- The regional and national workshops are being organised by the DoPT in association with the Regional Training Institutes every year. Shri Joshi desired to make these conferences more lively and broad based with a larger participation of the citizens and NGO’s.