The Hindu : New Delhi News : Clarification on APIOs sought

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 25, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Clarification on APIOs sought

Siddharth Narrain

NEW DELHI: Civil society organisations have urged the Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, the nodal agency responsible for implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, to issue a clarification to all state governments about the appointment of Assistant Principal Information Officers (APIOs) as required by the Act. Section 5(2) of the RTI Act says that every public authority must designate an officer at each sub-divisional level or other sub-district level as a Central APIO or a State APIO to receive applications for information or appeals to forward them to the Central or State Principal Information Officers (PIOs).

In a letter to A. N. Tiwari, Secretary for Personnel, Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Maja Daruwala, Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), has pointed out that the wording of Section 5(2) does not reflect the original intention of the National Advisory Council (NAC), which had originally suggested a provision envisaging that the APIO would act as a clearing house for all applications to any public authority, and that it was not the NAC's intention that every public authority would have to designate an APIO. The letter says that making every public authority appoint APIOs would make it complicated and burdensome for many public authorities.

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