Tamil Nadu   

Manpower shortage hits working of SIC

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu State Information Commission (SIC) was set up under the Right to Information Act to ensure transparency in public affairs. But, over two years after its creation, it is yet to publish its records on its website.

Madhav Vishnubhatta, an activist working with the Tamil Nadu Right to Information Campaign, an umbrella group of NGOs, said: “The Act clearly prescribes that all public authorities should publish records of their organisation within 120 days from the enactment of the Act. Computerisation of records within a ‘reasonable time’ is also required.”

Mr. Vishnubhatta said the Chief State Information Commissioner, S. Ramakrishnan, has allowed him to attend hearings and inspect records. But an RTI petition filed by him with regard to publishing of relevant complete records and statistics did not yield sufficient information.

When contacted, Mr. Ramakrishnan told The Hindu that lack of manpower was the problem.

He said: “We were assigned some staff when we started operations in 2006. But the volume of work has quadrupled each year for the last 2 years and we are looking at nearly 400 petitions a day now with the same staff. We are still waiting for the government to respond to our repeated requests.”

Four additional commissioners were recently appointed by the government to reduce the workload, but stenographers and other clerical support staff had not yet been provided, he says.

Personnel and Administrative Reforms Secretary, T. S. Sridhar, said the process of appointing new staff took time.

Required resources would be provided at the earliest, he added.

But Mr. Ramakrishnan said: “It is a case of heads without hands. We are not able to work to our full strength because of non-availability of the staff. This is slowing us down and compiling of statistics and computerisation of records is difficult on top of our regular work.”

In fact, hearings are held only three days a week on some weeks, a source in the Commission said, while the other two days are spent in finishing the clerical work. This has led to a backlog, with petitions filed two or three months ago getting cleared only now.

The issue, Mr. Ramakrishnan said, revolved around the autonomy granted to the Commission. While the Act clearly states that the Commission will function independently, it says the State government should provide such resources as the Commission requires. This caused delays due to the files moving along the prescribed bureaucratic channels before the requests were answered, he said.

“The Punjab government has ensured financial autonomy for its SIC by providing funds through grants-in-aid. If this model is replicated, we can work more efficiently by hiring the staff we require,” he added.

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