Nagaland Information Commission’s performance hailed

It has highest number of translations of RTI Act in local dialects in the country

Eastern Mirror Desk

Dimapur, Oct. 11: The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiatives (CHRI) in its Rapid Review 4.0 (earlier called as Rapid Study) hailed Nagaland Information Commission as the ‘lone example of perfect statutory compliance among the Information Commission in the country which had all the annual reports on its website’, stated a report from the department of personnel and administrative reforms (P & AR). It added the CHRI review was released on March 12 last year.

The Nagaland Information Commission also has the highest number of translations of RTI Act in local dialects in the country and also displayed RTI user guide/citizens guide in all its local languages on its website.

The report states that Nagaland Information Commission has also been mentioned among the nine states in the country along with the Central Information Commission which have displayed updated case pending data on their websites. Among the small states category, Nagaland recorded the highest number of RTI applications received from 2006-07 to 2016-17 at 24, 896.

The report by the department of P & AR maintained that the commission had also analysed the RTI applications received by various public authorities in the state for the very first time for the periods 2015-16 and 2016-17, which was perhaps the first information commission in the country to have undertaken such analysis.

“The commission had continued with the analysis of the RTI request/applications received by the various public authorities in the state for the period 2017-18. The analysis showed that there has been a decline in the number of RTI applications/requests received by the various public authorities in the state during the last three years from 2015-16 to 2017-18. This decline it stated can be safely attributed due to the increase in the level of transparency in the state as per the above analysis of proactive disclosures carried out by the commission,” read the report from department of P & AR.

“In the previous years the most sought after nature of information during 2017-18 were financial matters such as funds released, sanction orders, actual payee receipts, and utilisation certificates followed by schemes related queries. With the high rate of unemployment in the state queries like appointment orders, incumbency lists, retirement lists, examination results, verification of mark sheets, admit cards, degree and diploma certificates were sought. Besides verification of documents such as driving licences and arms licences were also sought mostly at the district level,” it added.

During the period March 2018 – Feb 2019, the commission received 11 RTI applications out of which three were furnished and eight were transferred to other public authorities. The amount of RTI application fee received was INR 30 and the cost of information was INR 400. It was reported to have received two complaints and twelve second appeals and out of which two appeals were disposed of. The commission had imposed penalty on four PIOs, amounting to INR 36, 750.