CIC wants FAQs answered on ministry websites: Report

Seeks to reduce number of RTI queries by making certain information readily available

The Central Information Commission (CIC) has asked central government ministries to proactively disclose information which will answer the public's frequently-asked-questions (FAQs), reported the Economic Times on Friday.

The CIC, according to the report, has prepared a list of FAQs for 70 ministries of the central government and wants the concerned ministries to post information at their own end, on their official websites, so as to proactively answer these FAQs and reduce the number of Right to Information (RTI) applications dealing with the listed issues.

The transparency watchdog is out to remedy its ever-increasing workload, added the report.

"We have compiled a list of subjects which are commonly asked by RTI applicants. If the applicants get this information readily on the website, the number of RTI applications would reduce and the Commission would not get so many complaints and appeals. It would also reduce the RTI workload of the government," a senior official told the financial daily.

The CIC is sitting down with these ministries to brief them on how to regularly disclose information regarding these subjects or FAQs, the report said, adding that Chief Information Commissioner RK Mathur had taken the issue up with information commissioners from various ministries over the past two weeks. 

According to the report, the CIC wants certain information – such as compensation for accident victims, government bungalows being used for marriage functions, and the status of public interest litigation, among others – to be answered on the concerned ministry's website itself. 

The most common response received by the CIC, according to the financial daily, is that the concerned information is already available on the ministry's site. 

In response, a senior official told ET that even if that was the case then "the presentation of information and content needs to change". He added that if the concerned information was "readily available", then so many people would not be asking similar questions and that ministries needed to figure out what the problem was.