Poor show by Orissa information commission

It takes two to three years to dispose a case

danish

Danish Raza | March 2, 2010



The Orissa Information Commission (OIC) has come under sharp attack for its sluggish pace of work. According to the RTI activists, it takes two to three years to dispose a case. More than 5,000 cases were pending before the commission by the end of December 2009.

These facts came to light during a public review of OIC's functioning in Bhubaneswar recently. It was attended by activists from Boudh,
Koraput, Bolangir, Dhenkanal, Cuttack and Sambalpur.

Pradip Pradhan, state convener of the Right to Food Campaign, said at the meeting that inefficiency on the part of the commission had
rendered the RTI Act meaningless in the state. Pradhan said in 2008, the chief information commissioner in the OIC disposed off 42 cases
per month, on an average, as against 267 cases per month by Shialesh Gandhi,  a member of the Central Information Commission.

Harishankar Panigrahi, a complainant from Sambalpur narrated his experience: “On one occasion I was not allowed to speak and when I
tried to speak the information commissioner threatened to put me behind the bars."

The activists passed a resolution for effective implementation of the RTI Act in the state and said the commission should provide copy of
the decision to all parties concerned within 7 days of the date of hearing. They also asked the government to consult them before making
any changes in the RTI rules.

Comments

 

Other News

Making AI work where governance is closest to people

India’s next governance leap may not solely come from digitisation. It will come from making public systems more intelligent, more adaptive, and more responsive to the dynamics at the grassroots. That opportunity is especially significant at the panchayat level, where governance is not an abstract po

Borrowing troubles: How small loans are quietly trapping youth

A silent crisis is playing out in the pocket of young India, not in stock markets or government treasuries, but in smartphones of college students and first-jobbers who clicked on the Apply Now button without reading the small print.  A decade ago, to take a loan, you had to do some paperwor

A 19th-century pilgrim’s progress

The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas By Jaladhar Sen (Translated by Somdatta Mandal) Speaking Tiger Books, 259 pages, ₹499.00  

India faces critical shortage of skin donors amid rising burn cases

India reports nearly 70 lakh burn injury cases every year, resulting in approximately 1.4 lakh deaths annually. Experts estimate that up to 50% of these lives could be saved with adequate access to skin donations.   A significant concern is that around 70% of burn victims fall wi

Not just politics, let`s discuss policies too

Why public policy matters Most days, India`s loudest debates stop at the ballot box. We can name every major leader and recall every campaign slogan. Still, far fewer of us can explain why a widow`s pension is delayed or how a government school`s budget is actually approved. That

When algorithms decide and children die

The images have not left me, of dead and wounded children being carried in the arms of the medics and relatives to the ambulances and hospitals. On February 28, at the start of Operation Epic Fury, cruise missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh school – officially named a girls’ school, in Minab,


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter