PREPARING FOR IMPLEMENTATION

Appointing Officers to RTI Positions

One of the first steps that will need to be undertaken to implement your right to information law is to appoint officers to key positions as required by the law.

Both the Central RTI Act and all of the State Acts require that specific officers within each public body covered by the law are given the responsibility for receiving and managing RTI applications within their organisation. The various laws give different names to these officers. Some but not all of the Indian RTI laws also require that an officials is also nominated as an appellate authority who will be responsible for dealing with complaints from the people who are unhappy with the way their request has been handled.

Under the Central Act, the following positions have been created:

• Public Information Officers (PIO);
• Assistant Public Information Officers (APIO);
• Appellate Authorities

Obviously, for the public to be able to use the law effectively, they need to know who they need to contact when they want to make an application or appeal. This means that once the APIOs, PIOs and Appellate Authorities are appointed and/or prescribed, this information should be widely disseminated. At a minimum, the APIOs', PIOs' and Appellate Authorities' contact details should be listed on each government website. They should also be accessible in hard copy at all offices, including being pinned to government noticeboards in local level offices.

Please click on the link to the Central RTI Act to read the detailed provisions contained in the law. Please click on the link to CHRI's State RTI pages to find out more about relevant rules and implementation in your specific State.