Response to, “Provisions in Draft RTI Bill That Could Turn It into a Paper Tiger.”

First of all, my Kudos to this brilliant and well researched article that shows the many potential and serious flaws in the RTI Bill. I do not see the point of having a RTI Law which has provisions in it to deny the very information that the law seeks to free up.

The ministers must understand that our bureau¬cracy and system will have proclivity towards not sharing information and so giving many escape clauses not to share information will defeat the very purpose of having the Act.

Also, how can the very MoIC also become the implementer of an Act under whose purview the ministry itself falls? This is like making one of the players the referee.

The lack of penalties in the bill for not display¬ing or sharing information gives no incentive to the system to seriously share information. The unnecessarily long extensions are also not good as people have to be kept waiting for months to get information.

The government must understand that RTI is a good governance and strong anti corruption tool that the citizens desperately need.

The current form of the RTI Bill gives one the impression that the government is just trying to hastily fulfill an election pledge and lacks the spirit of transparency needed for such a bill. Is PDP just another version of DPT or is this party really serious about change? The weak kneed RTI Bill so far does not give much signs for optimism.

By Sonam

Good review. Even for a lay person like me, go¬ing through their exemption list, I was thinking if this is the end product (no value to the in-tended benefactor) why on earth they wasted so much time, effort and money on it. It is as good as not having one.

By Kado

Good one. Done a good background study. I hope the present govt. takes heed of this article. This will do a lot of good, for now and the future.

By Dhokdola

The exemption list includes everything under the sun. Looks weird, if all those lists are to be exempted, then what is the use of having RTI bill at the first place. The list nullifies everything in the bill.

By RTI