Need to make people aware to stop misuse of RTI: Amit Shah

New Delhi: The Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah has said that people need to be instigated towards misuse of RTI though there has been very little misuse of RTI, this shows the maturity of our democracy. Shah was speaking at the 14th Annual convention of the Central Information Commission in New Delhi on Saturday.

"RTI instils a sense of ownership"

Shah expressed pleasure at the functioning of the Right to Information (RTI) Act and said that in the 14 years since its enactment, the purpose and objective of the act has been fulfilled. He added that the main objective of RTI was to increase the trust of people in the system of governance, and the act has been successful in instilling and strengthening the faith of the people that the system functions within the boundaries defined by the Constitution.

Shah praised RTI as a great step to remove injustice and corruption from the system and increase the efficiency of governance. He said that RTI removes arbitrariness from governance and acts as a major grievance redressal tool. He said that the use of high technology methods like video conference and digitization of RTI files makes the lives of litigants easier. "the government is committed to creating a system where there is enough suo moto declaration of information that the need to file RTI applications itself is reduced" he added.

"the government is committed to creating a system where there is enough suo moto declaration of information that the need to file RTI applications itself is reduced"- Shah

Home Minister remarked that till 2005, no steps taken to remove the disconnect between the government and the people had been successful, but in the last 14 years, this gap is being fulfilled by the transparency and accountability ushered in through RTI. He called transparency and accountability the twin pillars of good governance and hailed RTI as a major milestone for good governance.

5 Lakh information officers working for RTI

The home minister said that India has nearly 5 lakh information officers working to fulfil the writ of RTI at different levels of government, and such a large number of officers working for the cause of transparency and accountability is unseen anywhere else in the world.

Shah gave the example of the Kedarnath all-weather road as a successful attempt to harness technology to increase transparency in government projects.
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He also mentioned the GeM (Government e-Marketplace) portal where the smallest vendor can be part of govt tendering. He hailed the portal as a major step forward for small industries and reiterated that the government was committed to creating a system where people would not need to use RTI because the information would be proactively disclosed and available in public domain.