The Right to Information Act (RTI) has completed 10 years and even the Prime Minister acknowledged its role in bringing about a transformation in governance. One part of the RTI legislation that hasn’t attracted enough attention by the government is the Section 4 disclosures. Despite repeated reminders by the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), many government departments are yet to implement Section 4 of the RTI act in Toto. Section 4 of the RTI act mandates government departments (public authorities) to proactively disclose certain information, so that the need for filing an application would come down. Some of information in Section 4 is immensely helpful to the common man. On the 10th anniversary, Factly analysed the Section 4 disclosures made by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the various Chief Minister Offices (CMOs) since they are the highest seats of power in the country.

RTI related information on the dedicated websites

Out of the 20 States/UTs with a dedicated website, 12 (60%) of them do not have any information on RTI. States like Gujarat, Sikkim, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Haryana are part of this list.

Only 8 states (40%) have RTI information on the CMO website namely Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Karnataka & Kerala.

RTI related information of the CMO on the Government Websites

Even taking those states into consideration that do not have a dedicated website for the CMO, only 14 (45%) of them had RTI details of the CMO on the official government website. In other words, 6 states that did not have a dedicated website for the CMO still had RTI details of the CMO in some other government website. Out of the 14 States/UTs with RTI details, only 9 of them (29%) had details of the Public Information Officer (PIO) and the Assistant Public Information Officer (APIO), the nodal officers in charge of RTI implementation in government departments.

Proactive Disclosure of the CMO

Only 5 States (16%) had proactive disclosure of the CMO, on the website, as mandated under Section 4 of the RTI. These five states are Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Only in one out of every 6 States, the CMO has made proactive disclosure as mandated by the RTI act even after 10 years.

Within these five states, Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab CMOs have made their disclosure only in English. In Maharashtra, the disclosure was made only in the local language. In Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, the disclosure was made in both English & the local language.

Which State does best?

The CMO of Uttar Pradesh does best as far as RTI disclosure is concerned. The disclosures are detailed and are available in both English and Hindi. In the other 4 states that have made proactive disclosure of the CMO, some of the details are outdated.

What does this mean?

It is disappointing to note that the highest seats of the power (PMO & CMOs) are themselves guilty of not implementing the RTI act. They are expected to stand as the right example to other departments and not the other way. We only hope that the PMO and the CMOs take this exercise seriously and make the full proactive disclosure at the earliest.