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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

AMU Ranks Third in RTI Queries Among Public Authorities

YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW: Home ministry receives maximum RTI queries
Himanshi Dhawan | TNN
(Publication: Times of India Mumbai; Date: Mar 3, 2009; Section: Times Nation; Page: 13)

New Delhi: The home ministry tops the chart amongst RTI information seekers while the finance ministry leads in rejection of applications. In 2006-2007, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) received 52,353 RTI applications compared to 1,316 pleas in 2005-2006.

Other ministries that received a large number of RTI applications include the ministry of communications and information technology (20,806), finance (18,830), railways (11,797) and urban development (10,938).

These are part of the annual report of the Central Information Commission (CIC) for 2006-2007 tabled in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Amongst the top five ministries that have the most number of rejections to their credit include finance ministry with the maximum of 6,160 rejected applications of the total of 18,830. These are followed by ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions with 1,090 rejections and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) with 205 rejections. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas rejected 667 of the 4,003 applications it received while ministry of defence turned down 734 of the 5,521 requests for information.

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) received 8,303 appeals, the maximum for any public authority. The DDA is followed by the estate office under the home ministry, followed by Aligarh Muslim University, Hindustan Shipyard Ltd and National Highway Authority of India. Incidentally, at 5,018, MHA is also at the top when it comes to receiving RTI appeals.

In an encouraging trend, the number of RTI applications have increased from 24,436 to 1.71 Lakh while the number of requests rejected have come down from 13.9% to 8.98%. Disciplinary action was taken in seven cases in 2006-2007 while penalty was levied in 24 cases. However, penalty was recovered only in 12 cases.

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