Challenges in the Implementation of the RTI Act

• According to Section 4 (1)(a) of the Act, every public authority must keep all of its records properly classified and indexed, and all records must be computerised. However, this has not yet been accomplished.
• According to Section 4 (2) of the Act, every public body should make every effort to provide the public with as much information as possible on a regular basis. However, this is still an unfulfilled promise.
• Appointments to higher positions have been delayed, including the role of CIC, which has been vacant since August 2014 and was only filled in July 2015.
• Political parties are still exempt from the Act’s provisions.
• Many appeals have been filed with state and federal information commissions. According to a report published by the RTI Assessment and Analysis Group (RAAG) in 2014, Madhya Pradesh has a waiting duration of over 60 years and West Bengal has a waiting period of around 18 years (based on current rates of pendency in Information Commissions).
• Those seeking information on illegal building or alleged social welfare plan scams, for example, risk their lives. Since 2005, about 90 RTI activists have been assassinated, according to the Commonwealth Human Initiative. RTI activists are not protected under the aforementioned Act.
• The government’s workforce isn’t properly trained to respond to RTI requests. Furthermore, the bureaucracy’s colonial mindset of withholding information acts as a barrier to disclosure.
• Section 8 of the Act allows the material to be disclosed if a greater public interest is served. However, the ‘national security provision’ of the Act often prevents such material from being published. Under the ‘national security and friendly ties with foreign countries’ provision, the central government recently declined to release information linked to the Rafael agreement.
• There have been instances of persons abusing RTIs by filing frivolous or vexatious requests.
• Until 2018, only about 2% of Indians had filed an RTI application in the 15 years after it was enacted. Many people are unwilling to approach authorities in order to obtain information, even if it is required.

The Unique Case of South Asia:

Corruption in South Asia has four key characteristics that make it significantly more dangerous than corruption in other parts of the world.

• To begin with, in South Asia, corruption occurs upstream rather than downstream. Corruption at the highest levels undermines essential development priorities, strategies, and programmes. Even while petty corruption may occur downstream, in industrial countries, these essential decisions are made through transparent competition and on merit.
• Second, in South Asia, corruption money has wings rather than wheels. The majority of the region’s corrupt earnings are swiftly smuggled away to safe havens abroad. While capital flight occurs in other nations as well, a larger part of it is invested in the United States.
• Third, in South Asia, corruption frequently leads to advancement rather than imprisonment. Unless they belong to the other team, huge fish rarely fry. Industrialised countries, on the other hand, frequently have a process of accountability in which even senior leaders are examined and prosecuted. Former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, for example, was compelled to live in exile in Tunisia to avoid extradition to Rome on corruption accusations.
• Fourth, corruption in South Asia happens among the 515 million people living in poverty, not among those with per capita incomes exceeding 20,000 dollars.

While corruption in rich, rapidly growing countries may be tolerable, if reprehensible, in poverty-stricken South Asia, it is political dynamite when the majority of the population is unable to meet their basic needs due to massive human deprivation and even more extreme income while a few make fortunes through corruption.