Implementing RTI Act

THE Right to Information (RTI) Act introduced in 2009 was meant to empower people to obtain information meaningfully in the democratic process with a view to ensuring increasing transparency, accountability and answerability of governance at the citizens' level. However, instead of empowering people with the correct information rapidly, its complex and time-consuming process is discouraging many of them in seeking information.
Particularly two areas with regard to obtaining information must be addressed right away. First, the traditional mindset of government officials for being overtly secretive; and the second is to fix the benchmarks for considering the importance of demands for information.
If it takes a Narayanganj resident an unbelievable eight months to obtain information about a patient from an upazila health complex and if applications are turned down because of a spelling error in the name of a designated officer then the right to information is going unmet because of technicalities. Clearly the Information Commission has shortage of manpower, lacks efficiency and is not adequately responsive to furnishing required information.
Need of the hour is to equip information officers and training them to collect and disseminate information on demand.
With all its elements, the RTI Act could most efficiently serve as a catalyst to institutionalise democracy, promote good governance and combat corruption. Success of the RTI depends on two factors – efficiency of the information providers and making people aware about their rights to information so that they can generate useful demands for information.