‘Transparency is an alien concept to Kejriwal government’

Once a crusader for transparency, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has done little to promote transparency in the departments of the Delhi government. In fact, it has shown a lack of political will in putting in place an online RTI filing system.

RTI activists have accused the Delhi government of going slow on putting in place a system of E-filing (online) of RTI applications, despite being in government for two years.

“It is painful to see that the Kejriwal government is doing little to promote transparency in the Delhi government, because, after all, he was expected to be doing the most in promoting transparency. His RTI activism days had made him the recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay award, but he seems to have forgotten that,” Shailesh Gandhi, former Central Information Commissioner, told The Sunday Guardian.

Venkatesh Nayak, Programme Director at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), said that the Delhi government also has the National Informatics Centre at its disposal to bring in a system of online RTI applications, but they “lack the political will”.

“Currently, in order to seek an RTI reply from the Delhi government, one has to either physically go to the particular department to put in one’s application or send the RTI application to the department concerned via post, including a demand draft of Rs 10, which is both time consuming and includes a lot of effort. However, it doesn’t end at this. In the Delhi government, one needs to know the PIOs (Public Information Officer) to make a demand draft as they have accounts opened in their names. In case the PIOs change and the applicant is not aware of this, his RTI will be rejected and this has emerged as a major problem,” Venkatesh added.  

However, the scenario is very different when it comes to the Central government, where the government has developed a centralised online RTI filing platform for almost all of its departments and is also adding new departments to its portal with time.

Not only this, RTI activists have also complained that the Delhi government has failed to put up information suo motu into the public domain, as mandated under Section 4 of the RTI Act, thus depriving information to its citizens.

Contacted for a reaction to the story, Nagendra Sharma, spokesperson of the Delhi government, said, “Please read the ARC (Administrative Reforms Commission) report.”

Other states in the country also do not fare well in terms of transparency, as only Maharashtra has been able to develop an online information delivery system.