Editorial
RTI under the microscope
Tangible progress yet to be seen
The round table organized by the Right to Information Forum on Wednesday threw up some glaring facts about the RTI one cannot be comfortable with; and that despite the information minister's claim that the government will establish a digital Bangladesh through implementing the RTI by the year 2021. The truth is that since the RTI came into effect, not much of the tangible about its implementation or workability has been observed. What has happened has only been in fits and starts, which is again natural given that there are hardly any institutional arrangements in place for people to derive benefits from the RTI. Of course, one welcome factor here is the setting up of an Information Commission. Too much emphasis on its own housekeeping and too little service to the people have characterised its work so far. However, it is beginning to provide, somewhat, the services it is meant to.
In other words, much deliberation and little practical implementation have gone into ensuring that the information promised by the RTI is actually made available to citizens. The irony is that while government departments are expected to keep such information ready for people as and when they ask for it, these departments themselves are in most instances unaware of the provisions of the RTI act and therefore are at sea when it comes to making information available to citizens. Such a trivialization of such a significant law is inexcusable and only reflects a laid-back attitude of the bureaucracy towards it. When demands for information thus remain unsatisfied, a whole plethora of questions comes up about the seriousness being attached to the RTI.
The kind of public awareness that should have been promoted about the RTI has been sadly missing. The motivation thus needed for people to ask for and get information has been conspicuous by its absence. That public servants and departments need to internalize the RTI act, that citizens must be made cognizant of the rights they are entitled to are a prerequisite for a substantive infusion of energy into governance. But such a process can only get underway if bodies like educational institutions, local government bodies, NGOs and rights defending organizations are engaged in a dissemination of information about the RTI to citizens on a systematic basis throughout the country.
Plainly, the RTI must be taken seriously at every level of government and, by extension, society. A cavalier attitude will undermine the enterprise.
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