1. An Initiative To implement Proactive
Disclosure under Section 4
By – Dr Sandeep Mahatme
SDM Gandachera,Tripura.

2. Total geographical area of around 600 sq. km
and a population of 80,000 consisting mainly of
Reangs, Chakmas and Tripuri tribal communities.
 Its having 19 ADC Villages and 217 paras, all
falling under Second Schedule of the
Constitution .
 It has 65 kms of International boundary with
Bangladesh and had a history of insurgency with
presence of NLFT insurgent group.
 Peace established with border fencing,56
security camps, 3 tier PRI system and
development activities.
 Transparency Desk is a part of 20-20 Initiatives in
subdivision.


3. Practical Problems
No.of RTI queries were filed by the citizens, social
activist, and others to various department office,
regarding diverse issues like
1.
Land records, development schemes,
2.
Compensation and relief assistance paid,
3.
Old office records regarding citizenship and SC
certificates
4.
Election related issues like inclusion , deletion of
voters, expenditure carried out during election by
SDM Office, list of Booth Level Officer’s etc
5.
Issues relating to roads and drinking water
schemes, different Rural Development and
Panchayat department Development schemes.
A)

4.  Complaints
of delayed or unresponsive
departments, seemingly unwilling to provide
the requisite information particularly with
Agri and DWS department which concerns
with activities implemented by them,
beneficiaries selected for the schemes and
corruption .
 Being prone to cyclone and flood disasters,
huge amounts of compensations have been
given to many families at different areas of
the sub-division.

5.  Clause
Section 4(2) of Right to Information
itself mentions that maximum use of
especially proactive disclosure clauses to be
made so that citizens has to make least use
of RTI applications for seeking information
and making its best possible use of proactive
disclosure.
 In order to achieve goals of “Good
Governance” the need for establishing
transparency and accountability becomes
much more important.

6.  Parliament
of India in last decade has been
putting lot of emphasis Rights based
approach to various development
programmes especially flagship programmes
like on Right to Employment through
MGNREGA , Right to Education through SSA
and RMSA , Right to Food through Food
Security Bill and Public Distribution System.
 Success of rights based programmes also
depends on transparency ,if public authority
implements Right to Information in letter
and spirit.

7.  In
a Government of responsibility like ours
where the agents of the public must be
responsible for their conduct, there can be
but a few secrets. The people of this country
have a right to know every public act,
everything that is done in a public way by
their public functionaries. They are entitled
to know the particulars of every public
transaction in all its bearings.”

8. Past experience of District Collector of
Ahmadnagar in Maharashtra state who allowed
public to get copies of documents and inspection
of official records resulted into better
professional work environment for office staff
and also led to speedier disposal of public
grievances. “Transparency Desk” also aims to
achieve this especially professionalism amongst
office staff.
 It is also the outcome of peoples long standing
struggle and peoples movement for bringing
transparency in governance to free our nation
from corruption, nepotism and favoritism


9. 



Availability of all important information of 22 Government
departments information at a single place i.e At the SDM
Office in a single table i.e. Transparency Desk.
Each department’s information is kept in separate file and
each file has index showing the information contained in
the file.
Transparency board has been fixed outside the room
depicting department wise available information in
separate indexes for easy location of files and other
desired information.
Information available in mixed format i.e English as well
as Bengali languages. Some information is available in
English and some in local languages. Also one office staff
fluent in local dialect has been appointed who can easily
explain the contents to the public in their native tongue.

10. 




No fee would be charged for seeking information irrespective of
APL/BPL status. Fee is applicable only for Photostat and other
purposes.
New information is not created for “Transparency Desk”.
Whatever existing information was there is assembled together at
one place.
Appointment of Deputy Collector & Magistrate as Nodal Officer
for looking into main issues related to functioning of
“Transparency Desk” Especially co-ordination with other
departments, timely i.e every 3 months updation of information,
maintaining quality of information, addressing public grievances
related to desk, training of the staff, maintenance of registers
etc.
Maintenance of “Transparency Desk ” register mentioning name
of visitors, nature of information required and name of
department from which info required , remark of visiting
personnel for taking feedback from the public.
Periodic updation of information after every 3 months by all
participating departments.

13.  No
extra burden on administration in terms
of man power, financially. Also the
expenditure for providing information
recurring and non-recurring through
“Transparency Desk” would be very less, only
in the form of expenditure for stationary.
The existing staff has been given additional
responsibility to look after the desk.

14. 



Inspite of the good pre-launching preparation and
effort, there were still some loopholes and problems
which came to light after the system was launched.
It was seen that the quality of information was quite
poorly selected by some of the offices, which shows
that they were not wholeheartedly attempting to
disclose relevant information.
Some departments submitted incomplete information
which were inadequate. Supporting documents were
not attached. They look like casual reports prepared
for some meetings.
Inspite of several reminders, most offices delayed in
the submission of their reports. After second meeting
with them they were asked to give complete ,
accurate, quality information along with supporting
documents

15. The knowledge that the department Action plan,
work progress and achievements reports are
within the public domain have put fear and
caution in the mind of the officers and staffs of
the departments which is in Public interest.
 The appointment of dedicated staffs with
knowledge of local language has greatly
benefited the local illiterate persons who can
orally ask and get the required information
easily from the staff in their own tongue. Earlier,
there was no scope for illiterate citizen to get
required information easily. The system provides
information in black and white, as well as
verbally in local dialect.


16. The SDM and DM & Collector has overall control
over all departments in the sub-division , District
. Also it is an important point for contact and
transaction between people and govt where
information relevant to them can be made
available at one source, without any fee through
model like “Transparency Desk”.
 With simple initiative, efficient use of man
power, necessary training and sensitization of
staff, good co-ordination with different
departments, “Transparency Desk” for proactive
disclosure for Right to Information Act
implementation can be started in each subdivision, district and other offices of public
authorities in a cost-effective manner.


17.  Collecting
information at one place will also
help to address the issues related to section
4 of RTI like total disclosure, quality of
disclosure, periodic maintenance and
updating of information and good quality of
audit of disclosure as all these issues would
be dealt by Nodal Officer.

18.  PM
Of our country has repeatedly expressed
dissatisfaction on poor progress made by
departments on section 4 of RTI.
 Our initiative will help in increasing the
faith of citizens, civil society, NGOs and
social activists on public servants and will
help in strenghtening democracy.
 It will also help in achieving the objectives
laid down by Constitution, Parliament ,
orders of Honble Supreme Court and
demands of Social movements ,NGOs to bring
greater transparency in Government.

19. Thank You.