What does Data tell us about Transparency in Public Authorities?

The Central Information Commission (CIC) conducted an audit exercise relating to the online disclosure of information by public authorities (PA) through their respective websites in compliance with Section 4 of the RTI Act. The last such audit was conducted in November 2018 by former chief information commissioners, A.N. Tiwari and M.M. Ansari; and is titled Transparency Audit of Disclosures u/s 4 of the Right to Information Act by the Public Authorities.

The summary of the audit is divided into the following points:

1. What was the objective of the exercise: As elucidated in the report,“The main objective of this exercise is two-fold. One is to make a thorough assessment of voluntary disclosures and the other is to indicate the areas and directions for increasing transparency in PAs.” It is their intention to identify and suggest measures to improve the state of disclosure of information voluntarily by the respective authorities.

2. Who was a part of the exercise: As per CIC’s record, 2092 PAs were directly approached to obtain the requisite information, however, only 40%, i.e. 838 of 2092 reverted back within the given time limit and thus, formed the basis of the audit.

3. What did the exercise show: 19% of the participant PAs scored the highest grade in terms of transparency and a significant number, 35%, of the whole obtained the lowest grades. It was seen that “Over 85% of PAs do not disclose information relating to: budget and programme, publicity and public interface and E-governance. On  key parameters such as these, PAs have been reluctant to ensure mandatory disclosures…”

   

   Top 10 Respondents that receive the highest number of RTI Complaints: Find the dataset here.

4. What information was missing: The audit revealed that missing information includes, the decision-making process of the PAs, minutes of meetings of various committees and boards, transfer and posting of senior officials, RTI Applications; Public Information Officers,  senior officials’ domestic and foreign visits, their respective grievance mechanism, discretionary and non-discretionary grants and details of the beneficiaries of subsidy, guidelines to how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds are to be utilised or allocated, sources and methods of funding political parties or identification of donors, and details about Public-Private Partnerships and outcomes of such ventures.

5. What did the auditors recommend: The auditors pointed out that though the task of complete audit of transparency in government sectors is herculean, it can be considerably lessened if, “...as a first step, evaluation of the websites of the public authorities to determine their compliance with the mandated provisions of Section 4 of the Right to Information law…” is conducted. The compilers recommend audits of PAs’ websites to not be “sporadic but regular” under the purview of the CIC, and the setting up of a web-based mechanism to aid them in this endeavour. They also suggested the use of proper methodology, careful selection of auditors, and a scheme of incentives to ensure a greater dedication to the transparency exercise.     

Comment: This is to bring to the readers’ mind that despite the recommendations by the esteemed auditors, the CIC has yet to undertake another similar audit exercise. 

Want to analyse CIC's data by yourself? Find the data on this link.