The time spent by government officials replying to RTI is so
little that it cannot be a pretext for them to shirk that task
In August 2011, the Supreme Court made an observation which had
some unintended consequences on the Right to Information (RTI) process. The
judgement by Justice R.V. Raveendran is turning out to be a seemingly
legitimate excuse for government officials to restrict information.
Gandhi says that at the most optimistic estimate not more than one
crore RTI applications are likely to be received by all public authorities
across the country in 2012. The average time to attend to each would be less
than three hours. That means no more than three crore hours spent by all officials.
Aditya Bandopadhyay went to court when the Central Board of Secondary Education
declined to provide his examination answer sheets under the RTI Act. While the court
allowed access to answer sheets, it also observed that the cherished right to
information should not affect administrative efficiency.
In his judgement, Justice R.V. Raveendran said: “The nation does not want a
scenario where 75 percent of the staff of public authorities spends 75 percent
of their time in collecting and furnishing information to applicants instead of
discharging their regular duties. The threat of penalties under the RTI Act and
the pressure of the authorities under the RTI Act should not lead to employees
of public authorities prioritising information furnishing at the cost of their
normal and regular duties.” Government officials are now using this excuse with
increasing frequency saying that even the court agrees. Central Information
Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi says 75 percent government staff spending 75
percent of their time on giving information would mean 56 percent (0.75 X 0.75)
of their total time spent only on replying to RTI queries.
Gandhi says that at the most optimistic estimate not more than one
crore RTI applications are likely to be received by all public authorities
across the country in 2012. The average time to attend to each would be less
than three hours. That means no more than three crore hours spent by all officials.
Assuming that an average government employee works for just six hours a day for
200 days a year, it would mean he would work for a total of 1,200 hours in a
year. That means 25,000 (3 crore divided by 1,200) employees would be required
full time. The Centre and all state governments have about 1.2 crore employees.
So, the total time spent by government employees on replying to RTI queries
would be 0.208 percent (25,000 divided by 12,000,000).
In other words, no more than 4.6 percent officials are spending 4.6 percent of
their time on giving information. This is based on conservative assumptions.
Surely, government officials work for more than six hours a day! Doesn’t look
like they have much space to hide.
source : - http://katiharho.blogspot.in
source : - http://katiharho.blogspot.in
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