TEAM HERALD
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
PANJIM: The State government has advertised the posts of Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioner for the third time. Both the posts are vacant over a year, after the expiry of the tenure of the previous officials.
The advertisement comes as RTI activists have pressurised the government to start the process of appointing a commissioner and chief commissioner.
While a resolution was passed at the first Rural All Goa RTI Convention held at Madkai on April 21, 2013 demanding “that the Goa Government immediately appoint the Goa State Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioner in a very transparent manner and in accordance with law”, National RTI Awardee, Rajan Ghate threatened to go on hunger strike if the government did not set the process in motion within 15 days.
The advertisement issued in some local dailies calls for application from eligible persons before May 25.
“The Chief Information Commissioner and the State Information Commissioner shall be a person of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance,” the ad reads.
The government had advertised the post twice before ~on April 17, 2012 for the post of State Information Commissioner and on August 09, 2012 for the post of Chief Information Commissioner.
Over 50 applications were received from college lecturers, ex government employees, current senior government officials former IAS officers and the like.
However none of them were chosen. Political parties led by the Nationalist Congress Party’s Trajano D’Mello had termed the delay in appointing the post as a means of stifling flow of information.
Among the applicants were Prabhakar Timble, former State Election Commissioner, Prakash Dessai, former chairman of the Goa Public Service Commission, Dr M Pinheiro Principal of Salgaocar College of Law and others.
