By Haryananewswire
CHANDIGARH, JUNE 2
The Haryana Government has issued guidelines to all the
Administrative Secretaries in the state regarding implementation of suo motu
disclosure under section 4 of Right to Information Act, 2005.
While
stating this here today, an official spokesman said that the purpose of suo
motu discloser under section 4 is to place a large amount of information in
public domain on a proactive basis to make the functioning of the public
authorities more transparent and reduce the need for filing individual RTI
applications.
He
said that the government has decided to issue the guidelines on the basis of
the report of a task force constituted by the Central Government on suo motu
disclosures under RTI Act.
He
said that Sub-section 4(2) of the RTI Act, 2005 requires every public authority
to take steps to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular
intervals through various means of communication, including internet so
that the public have minimum resort to use the Act to obtain information.
He
said that information relating to procurement made by Public Authorities
including publication of notice or tender enquiries, corrigenda thereon, and
details of bid awards detailing the name of the supplier of goods or
services being procured or the works contracts entered or any such
combination of these and the rate and total amount at which such procurement
or works contract is to be done should be disclosed.
He
said that if public services are proposed to be provided through a Public
Private Partnership (PPP), all information relating to the PPPs must be
disclosed in the public domain by the Public Authority entering into the
PPP contract or concession agreement. He said that this may
include details of the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), if any set up,
detailed project reports, concession agreements, operation and maintenance
manuals and other documents generated as part of the implementation of the
PPP project. The documents under the ambit of the exemption from disclosure of
information under section 8 (1)(d) and 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act would not be
disclosed suo motu. Further information about fee, tolls, or other kind of
revenue that may be collected under authorization from the government
information in respects of outputs and outcomes, process of selection of the
private sector party may also be proactively disclosed. All payments made under
the PPP project may also be disclosed in a periodic manner alongwith the
purpose of making such payment.
He
said that transfer policy for different grades of employees serving in Public
Authority should be proactively disclosed. All transfer orders should be
publicized through the website or in any other manner listed in section
4(4) of Act. These guidelines would not be applicable in cases of
transfers made keeping in view sovereignty, integrity, security, strategic,
scientific or economic interests of the State and the exemptions covered
under Section 8 of the Act. These instructions would not apply to security
and intelligence organizations under the second schedule of the RTI Act.
He
said that all Public Authorities shall proactively disclose RTI applications
and appeals received and their responses, on the websites maintained by
Public Authorities with search facility based on key words. RTI
applications and appeals received and their responses relating to the
personal information of an individual may not be disclosed, as they do not
serve any public interest.
He
said that Public Authorities may proactively disclose the CAG and PAC paras and
the Action Taken Reports (ATRs) only after these have been laid on the
table of both the Houses of the Parliament. However, CAG paras dealing
with information about the issues of sovereignty, integrity, security,
strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State and
information covered under Section 8 of the RTI Act would be exempted.
He
said that Citizens Charter prepared by the Ministry or Department, as part of
the Result Framework Document of the department or organization would be
proactively disclosed and six monthly report on the performance against
the benchmarks set in Citizens Charter should also be displayed on the
website of public authorities.
He
said that all discretionary or non-discretionary grants or allocations to state
governments, NGOs, other institutions by Ministry or Department should be
placed on the website of the Ministry or Department concerned. Annual
Accounts of all legal entities who are provided grants by Public
Authorities should be made available through publication, directly
or indirectly on the Public Authority’s website.
He
said that in case of foreign tours of Prime Minister of Ministers, information
to be disclosed proactively may contain nature of the official
tour, places visited, the period, number of people included in the
official delegation and total cost of such travel undertaken. These
instructions would not apply to security and intelligence organizations
and CVOs of public authorities. He said that public authorities may
proactively disclosed the details of foreign and domestic official tours
undertaken by the ministers and officials of the rank of Joint Secretary to the
Government of India and above and head of department since January 1, 2012. The
disclosers may be updated once every quarter.
He
said that with a view to ensure that websites’ disclosures are complete, easily
accessible, technology and platform neutral and in a form which conveys
the desired information in an effective and user-friendly manner, it
should be the endeavor of all public authorities that all entitlements to
citizens and all transactions between the citizen and government are
gradually made available through computer based interface. The ‘Electronic
Delivery of Services Bill, 2012’ under formulation in Government of India
would provide the necessary impetus. Websites should contain detailed
information from the point of origin to the point of delivery of
entitlements or services provided by the Public Authorities to citizens. Orders
of the public authority should be uploaded on the website immediately
after they have been issued, he added. He said that websites should have
detailed directory of key contacts, details of officials of the Public
Authority. It is obligatory for every Public Authority to proactively disclose
‘details in respect of the information, available to or held by
it, reduced in an electronic form’. The website should therefore indicate
which digitally held information is made available publicly over the internet
and which is not. He said that as departments reorganize their systems and
processes to enable themselves for electronic service delivery, it is
recommended that the requirement of bringing due transparency as provided
in the RTI Act is given adequate consideration at the design stage itself.
He
said that to maintain reliability of information and its real time updation,
information generation in a digital form should be automatically updated
on the basis of key work outputs, like a muster roll and salary slip
or formalization of a government order.
He
said that information must be presented from a user's perspective, which may
require rearranging it or simplifying it. Information and data should be
presented in open data formats whereby it could be pulled by different
Application Protocol Interfaces to be used in different fashions more
appropriate to specific contexts and needs. He said that every webpage
displaying information or data proactively disclosed under the RTI Act
should, on the top right corner, display the mandatory field ‘Date last
updated.
He
said that all government departments have specific duties and responsibilities
under the respective Allocation of Business Rules (AOB) issued by the
appropriate Government. He said that alongwith routine work of governance,
government functionaries are required to make decisions in a discretionary
manner but broad guiding principles are laid down in some rule or the
other.
He said that every public authority should
proactively disclose the standards by which its performance should be
judged. Norms may be qualitative or quantitative in nature, or temporal or
statutory norms. Public authorities would need to disclose norms for
major functions that are being performed. He said that wherever norms have
been specified for the discharge of its functions by any statute or
government orders, they should be proactively disclosed, particularly linking
them with the decision making processes. He said that all Public
Authorities should proactively define the services and goods that the
particular public authority or office provides directly, detailing and
describing the processes by which the public could access and or receive
the goods and services that they are entitled to, from the public authority
or office.
He
said that keeping in view of the technical nature of the government budgets, it
is essential that Ministries or Departments prepare simplified versions of
their budgets which could be understood easily by general public and place them
in public domain. Budgets and their periodic monitoring reports may also
be presented in a more user-friendly manner through graphs and tables. He
said that outcome budget being prepared by Ministries or Departments of
Government of India should be prominently displayed and be used as a basis
to identify physical targets planned during the budgetary period and the
actual achievement vis-à-vis those targets. He said that funds released to
various autonomous organizations, statutory organizations, attached offices,
Public Sector Enterprises, Societies, NGOs or Corporations should be put on the
website on a quarterly basis and budgets of such authorities may be made
accessible through links from the website of the Ministry or
Department. Wherever required by law or executive instruction, sector
specific allocations and achievements of every department or public
authority must be highlighted, he added.
He
said that keeping in view the varied levels of computerization of records and
documents in public authorities, data about records that have been
digitized may be proactively disclosed on the respective websites,
excluding those records or files or information that are exempted under
Section 8.
He
said that each Ministry or Public Authority shall ensure that these guidelines
are fully operationalized within a period of six months from the date of
their issue. Proactive disclosure as per these guidelines would require
collating a large quantum of information and digitizing it.
He
said that each Ministry or Public Authority should get its proactive disclosure
package audited by third party every year. The audit should cover
compliance with the proactive disclosure guidelines as well as adequacy of
the items included in the package. The audit should examine whether there
are any other types of information which could be proactively disclosed.
Such audit should be done annually and should be communicated to the
Central Information Commission annually through publication on their own
websites, he added.
He
said that each Central Ministry or Public Authority should appoint a senior
officer not below the rank of a Joint Secretary and not below the rank of
Additional Head of Department in case of attached offices for ensuring
compliance with the proactive disclosure guidelines. The Nodal Officer
would work under the supervision of the Secretary of the Ministry or
Department or the Head of Department of the attached office, as the case
may be. Nodal Officers of Ministry or Department and Head of Department
separately should also ensure that the formations below the Ministry or
Department or Attached Office also disclose the information as per the
proactive disclosure guidelines, he added.
He
said that the government has issued directions to all Ministries or Departments
to include a chapter on RTI Act in their Annual Reports submitted to the
Parliament. Details about compliance with proactive disclosure guidelines
should mandatorily be included in the relevant chapter in Annual Report of
Ministry or Department, he added.
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