New Delhi, Nov 5 (IANS) A government official in Dehradun, another in Mahbubnagar in Andhra Pradesh and a police official in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh have aided transparency in governance by providing complete and satisfactory information in all Right to Information (RTI) applications received by them. The three have been shortlisted for awards.
A study conducted by Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF), which instituted the first RTI national awards, has shortlisted the three government officials for awards in the Best Public Information Officer category. Two of the officers would be the final winners of the awards to be given away Dec 1.

The government officials are Lalit Narayan Mishra and S. Raja Sekhar, and the police official is Superintendent of Police Atul Fulzele.

Mishra, 33, began working as a Public Information Officer (PIO) in 2006 in Auriya and later Etawah districts of Uttar Pradesh without much support from his junior officers. At present, he is working in Dehradun (Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Chamoli district).

“His office was the first in the entire Etawah district to implement the RTI Act. His office spread awareness about the RTI Act in remote villages with the help of a number of NGOs. In the last one year of his tenure as PIO, he received 84 applications and gave satisfactory information to all of them within the stipulated time limit of 30 days,” said a statement by PCRF.

“He provided complete and correct information to all 60 applications that he received during the calendar year 2008. No first or second appeal was filed against him. And all the people to who we wrote, expressed satisfaction with the information provided by him,” it added.

The other finalist is Atul Fulzele, Superintendent of Police in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh.

“He has been devotedly serving the cause of bringing transparency in the various echelons of the Indian Police Service. He even tried to change the mindset of his subordinates by training them to fill forms for RTI applicants, voluntarily give information and not even wait till the end of the mandatory 30-day period to give information,” the statement said.

“Out of 202 RTI applications received by him, only 11 went in first appeal and only one went in second appeal. He responded to 193 applicants within 30 days, providing information in many cases within a week. Out of those who he claims to have provided complete information, 85 percent people reported satisfaction,” it added.

The third finalist S. Raja Sekhar of Andhra Pradesh government. “Sekhar fought general hostility towards RTI among babus to inject a large dose of transparency in Mahbubnagar district administration. He proactively made available old land records to the public and revealed as much of government records as possible,” it said.

“As District Revenue Officer (DRO) and PIO at Mahbubnagar, Sekar received 125 RTI applications, only five of which went into appeals. Of those applications, 122, or 97 per cent, were answered within statutory time limit of 30 days, many within 10 days, some even the same day of being received!. He answered over 90 per cent of his applications to the satisfaction of information seekers,” it added.

The winners would be decided on Nov 27 by a jury consisting of Aamir Khan, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Fali S. Nariman, Justice J.S. Verma, Pullela Gopichand, Sanjay Gupta, Madhu Trehan, Mallika Sarabhai, J.M. Lyngdoh, Prannoy Roy and Santosh.

The award consists of a citation, a trophy and a cash prize of Rs.200,000.

–Indo-Asian news Service

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