State Information Commissioner Khushwant Singh on Friday directly the officials of all government departments to proactively disclose information under section-4 of Right to Information Act 2005.Accompanied by Deputy Commissioner Navjot Pal Singh Randhawa, the State Information Commissioner said that under Section 4 of Right to Information Act 2005, the public authorities have to publish the information to the public on regular intervals voluntarily and not on the demand of the public.
He said that the information including annual reports, directory of public information officers, information of schemes, list of beneficiaries and others on their websites of the departments.He asked the heads of various departments to develop a mechanism to disclose such details to the public to ensure transparent functioning.Singh said that the commission would carry out the transparency record in the coming days to find out proactively disclosure of the information by public authorities.
The Commissioner also said that all applications should be disposed of within the prescribed time limit of 30 days, and if there is any delay in giving the information on genuine ground, the applicant must be intimated by the department.He also reviewed the status of applications received under RTI Act by various departments.Prominent among present on the occasion included Additional Deputy Commissioner (G) Jasbir Singh, Assistant Commissioner Deepankar Garg, DRO Ajitpal Singh and others.