Bijay Charak
Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 3: Majority of departments in J&K are not disclosing the RTI information on their websites despite repeated directions from the government. Nearly eight months ago, the government had issued three orders instructing all departments to voluntarily disclose the information in terms of Section 4 (1) (b) of J&K Right to Information Act 2009. "In these orders, government had reprimanded all departments for their failure to ensure disclosure of information in terms of Section 4 (1) (b) JK RTI Act 2009, yet they have not uploaded a single reply on their official websites," said Ravinder Sharma, an RTI activist. He said that most of the departments were also not updating their websites on regular basis, while as few departments were yet to launch their websites. "One the one hand Prime Minister Modi launches Digital India Programme with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, but on the other state governments, like J&K, do not gave damn to such initiatives," said Sharma. Government has ordered the Administrative Secretaries, Divisional Commissioners, Head of Departments and Deputy Commissioners to ensure voluntarily disclose of the information on the websites of different departments. Another RTI activist Raj Kumar said, "The Centre is asking for disclosure of RTI replies and appeals, but in our state the appeals of the state government to the departments to update their websites and upload information falls on deaf ears. If government imposes some penalty on the heads of these departments may be things might change," he said. |
