PREPARING FOR IMPLEMENTATION

Setting Up Information Commissions

Under the Central Act, at the Central level and in all States, new bodies will need to be set up which will be responsible for hearing appeals as well as for monitoring implementation of the Central Act. These bodies will be known as Information Commissions.

The establishment of Information Commissions is a unique feature of the Central Act. None of the other Indian State RTI Acts requires them. This means that operational decisions still need to be made by Governments about how each Commission will work in practice. How many Commissioners will be appointed? How many staff will be employed in support? What will be the budget of the Commissio? Will Commissioners make decisions as a group or individually? How many offices will the Commission have - only one or will there be regional offices? If the latter, how will they be staffed? Serious consideration needs to be given to these issues.

For more information and ideas on some of these questions, see:

• CHRI (2005) Report from National Conference on "Effective Implementation: Preparing to Operationalise the RTI Act 2005", organised by CHRI for Government and civil society in May 2005.
• CHRI (2005) Report of RTI Workshop with Uttaranchal Government, meeting of senior Government officials from Uttaranchal organised in July 2005.

Notifications of Appointments and Contact Details
In the spirit of open government and proactive disclosure, 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 appeal. This means that once the Commissioners are appointed, this information should immediately be published - in the media and on a Government website dedicated to RTI. Similarly, once the full staffing complement is employed and offices established, all of this should be widely published and disseminated. Contacts details should be accessible in hard copy at all offices, including being pinned to government noticeboards in local level offices.

Click for a list of contacts for the Central and State Information Commissions.

Please click on the links for the provisions under Central Act on Setting up the Central Information Commission and Setting up State Information Commissions.