RTI disposal rate remains unaffected: Jitendra Singh rebutts opposition's 'inactive' claim

Union Minister of State Dr. Jitendra Singh gave a befitting reply to the Opposition on Thursday who had made unsubstantiated observations alleging that the COVID-19 pandemic had left various Commissions in Government of India including the Central Information Commission inactive.  

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Dr. Singh rebutted the Opposition with statistical figures to state that the reality was contrary to the same. "The disposal rate of RTI had remained unaffected by the pandemic and at certain intervals, the disposal rate was even higher than the usual," added Singh. 

The Union Minister after a review of the functioning of the Central Information Commission (CIC) with Chief Information Commissioner of India, Bimal Julka, said that "the functioning of the Commission had not been interrupted even for a single day during the entire course of the pandemic."

"The entire credit of the same goes to the commission and its functionaries that even amid the pandemic on 15th May this year, the Central Information Commission(CIC) started entertaining, hearing and disposing of RTIs from the newly created Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, through virtual means," added Dr. Jitendra Singh. 

While citing some of the figures compiled by the Commission, Dr. Singh mentioned that the "e-office was was extended to the home computers of the information officers and intensive use of technological tools were implemented for disposal of cases." 

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While the number of cases disposed of every month during the pandemic remained comparable to the corresponding month of last year, one glaring example is of June 2020, when the number of RTI cases that were disposed of by Central Information Commission was 1785, in comparison to June 2019, when the total number of cases disposed of were 1297.  This, in other words, "indicates that the disposal rate was in fact significantly higher during this period, despite the constraints of the COVID pandemic," he said.

Further, Chief Information Commissioner Julka,  informed Minister Singh that "various steps are taken to facilitate the CIC hearing during the lockdown and partial lockdown included adoption of new methods. These included video conferencing, audio conferencing, facilitation of return submission, uploading of the contact details of Deputy Registrars on the website, issue of notices by e-post wherever required, online registration, and scrutiny of fresh cases on the same day, among others." 

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