Team Herald
PANJIM: The power of Right to Information (RTI) has made its presence felt in the State since its introduction in 2006, and Goa is no stranger to this as is evident from the performance report of the Goa State Information Commission.
The report for the year 2014 shows that 11,253 applications were filed in nearly 50 departments.
Departments that have received the maximum requests under RTI were the North Goa collectorate, Public Works Department (PWD) and the Town and Country Planning (TCP) departments.
The collectorate got the most with 3,666 applications, the PWD had 1,843 and TCP received 1,353 requests. The Settlement and Land Records was listed as the fourth highest with 792 applications.
In terms of officials that received the most applications, the Mamlatadar of the Bardez received the highest number of RTI applications with 1,265 people seeking replies. Deputy Collector North Goa registered 430 applications while the Margao deputy town and country planner received 344 and Executive Engineer Division- VI received 215 applications.
Departments that didn’t submit their RTI returns include the South Goa collectorate, Excise, Mines and Geology, Office of Commercial Taxes, Police, Public Grievances, Prosecution, Panchayat, Social Welfare, Tourism, Transport and National Institute of Oceanography.
The first year the commission had received 102 appeals. In 2014, 127 appeals were registered in addition to 706 applications from previous years, 43 complaints were received in addition to the 631 already existing; of these 125 were disposed.
The commission in its report said that between the years 2006 and 2014, there had been a 13 percent increase in the number of appeals, complaints and penalties received by the commission.
“Such substantial increase in the number of applications shows that the common people of the State were becoming aware of the provisions of the RTI Act 2005. Many have approached this office for guidance in the RTI applications even from the remote areas,” said the department in its report.
