Men of honour

RTI Awards Secretariat has short listed the name of three PIO's for the RTI award. The final two awardees will be decided by a jury consisting of Aamir Khan, Former election commissioner JM Lyngdoh, NR Narayana Murthy among many others
Hardnews Bureau Delhi

RTI Awards Secretariat (RAS) has short listed the name of three public relations officers (PIO's) for the RTI award. Dr Atul Fulzele (Superintendent of Police, Kangra district, Himachal Pradesh), S Raja Sekhar (Administrative Officer, HRD department, Andhra Pradesh) and Dr Lalit Narayan Mishra (SDM, Chamoli district, Uttarakhand) have been selected for the final round.

The final two awardees will be decided by a jury consisting of eminent personalities like film actor Aamir Khan, Former election commissioner JM Lyngdoh and Infosys Mentor, NR Narayana Murthy among many others.  The award will be presented on December 1, 2009 in New Delhi.

The RAS had invited nominations from all over the country. A total of 112 PIO's who were confident that they had been exceptional in the business of disseminating information had filed their nominations. "We are glad that many government departments like the railways participated by officially nominating its PIO's," a press release by RAS read.

These officers were short-listed after elaborate evaluation of their conduct as a PIO. An RTI application was filed with each of the officer asking for how many applications they had received in 2008, to how many applicants information was provided on time and the number of appeals filed against them. A public satisfaction index was then calculated from the available data and only 15 out of 112 PIO's made it to the next round. The genuineness of the data provided by the short listed 15 PIO's was verified by a team of the RAS which personally visited their offices. The three finalists were selected after receiving feedback from the applicants who had filed RTI applications in their offices.

Meanwhile, all kinds of misdeeds on the part of the bureaucrats and other low rung information officers continue to plague the implementation of the RTI Act. There were reports of applicants being implicated in fabricated charges of rape, kidnapping and extortion when they approached the information officers.
Recently, Justice Rajendra Prasad a member of the Bihar Human Rights Commission wrote a letter to the state government to look into the matter. "The allegations constituted a serious violation of the human rights of the people of Bihar in general, and the existing and potential seekers of information under the RTI Act, 2005, in particular," Justice Prasad had written.
Justice Prasad had sought immediate suspension of the erring officials and also recommended that departmental proceedings be initiated against them.