Follow suo motu disclosure on governance matters:Govt to depts

All departments should proactively make public information related to Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects and CAG objections, among other governance matters, the Centre said today.
The suo motu disclosure of information on matters handled by all departments is a mandatory obligation under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which acts as nodal authority to see implementation of the RTI Act, has written to secretaries of all ministries and chief secretaries of state governments to adhere to its guidelines on suo motu disclosures and get its compliance audited by third party.
"It was required that each ministry or public authority should get its proactive disclosure package audited by third party every year and such audit should be communicated to the Central Information Commission through publication on their own website.

"It has been noticed that most of the ministries or public authorities have not yet got their proactive disclosure package audited by a third party," the DoPT said in its communique.
It is once again requested that the suo motu guidelines be complied with and the proactive disclosure package be got audited by a third party. The compliance report may be sent to the DoPT and the CIC at the earliest, the communique said.

The DoPT, in its directive issued in April last year, had asked all departments to proactively put in public domain all information related to procurement of goods, PPP projects, transfer policy and orders, RTI applications, CAG objections, citizens charter, discretionary and non-discretionary grants, foreign tour of Prime Minister and ministers, among others.

In addition to enhancing transparency, the measure will also result in reduction in RTI applications, it had said.
"Each ministry or public authority should get its proactive disclosure package audited by third party every year. The audit should cover compliance with the proactive disclosure guidelines as well as adequacy of the items included in the package.
"All public authorities should proactively disclose the names of the third party auditors on their website. For carrying out third party audit through outside consultants also, ministries or public authorities should utilize their plan or non-plan funds," the DoPT guidelines said.