[LIS-Forum] FW: On RTI Act

MP Tapaswi murari at nio.org
Sat Mar 15 15:18:09 IST 2008


Dear Professional colleagues, 
I have been reading the views whether a Librarian should be PIO (Public
Information Officer) or not with interest. It is always a business of Lib &
Info Professional (LIP) when it comes to dealing with information. However,
in current scenario note that everything is information and it is wise not
to place our hands in every information that exists. 

RTI act was introduced in 2005 with a very broad interest to promote
transparency and accountability in the offices where the Government funding
is received. Any citizen of India now using this act can ask information
from any office (designated as public authority) and the office is bound to
give it. Providing information is close to the hearts of LIPs. The PIO is a
very "powerful" person in the public authority and seek information from
other colleagues in the organization. Having given this authority to the
PIO, very large responsibility has also been bestowed on him/her. The
Central Information Commission (CIC) views it very seriously if the
information is not provided within the stipulated time (30 days) and also if
the information is not provided if it is proved to exist (of course, there
are certain items of disclosure and the definition of information itself
indicates what all could be provided). As such it is, no doubt, an
interesting process something beyond books for LIPs to handle. 

But not all roses! I am a PIO for our institute since the act came into
force and so far answered 75 queries (note that each query has several
paragraphs ranging from 10 to 250 nos!). Over 95% of the queries that have
been answered are to satisfy personal interests (seem to be) and not public
interests for which the act has been introduced. Moreover, with whatever
sincerity you dispose off the requests, the querying person hardly gets
satisfied with the replies and the process, at times, continues up to the
level of two appeals. Lot of time is 'invested' (if some one does not like
to use a word 'wasted') for an unproductive (in my opinion) work leaving
aside the normal professional duties that take away peace of mind. 

I would sum up saying it is an interesting job for those having a
temperament like an advocate, who can read through the words and play with
the words and arguments. Let me also indicate that who so ever the PIOs I
came across so far (either LIPs or from other profession), are doing this
job because it has been 'assigned' to them. Of course, a human mind always
feels someone else's job is better than theirs!

With warm regards, 

Dr Murari P Tapaswi
Natl Info Centre for Marine Sciences (NICMAS)
National Institute of Oceanography (NIO)
Dona Paula 403 004 Goa, India
Phone: 91-832-2450275; Fax: 91-832-2450602
Visit websites: http://www.nio.org; http://www.mangroveindia.org

-----Original Message-----
From: lis-forum-bounces at ncsi.iisc.ernet.in
[mailto:lis-forum-bounces at ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] On Behalf Of Kshipra Sardesai
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 8:14 PM
To: rajankila at hotmail.com
Cc: Lis forum
Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] On RTI Act

Dear LIS Professionals,
 
I also agree with K Rajashekharan views about RTI Act professionals as
Librarians.I would like to add some more points to that.

1.	Librarians have approach of solving the problems.
2.	They are good listeners and ability to know the subject.
3.	Librarians are polite and servicing attitudes
4.	Cataloguing and classification experts
5.	They are expert in preservation, retrieval and dissemination .
6.	To get the best implemtation of RTI Act among the common people they
are the proper persons to guide in a correct fashion.
7.	Reagrding Govt Procedures and regulations these things are to be
trained to every professionals and once this type of training and knowledge
is given then LIS professionals will definately give best outputs.
8.	The Information Technology updates are being accepted by this
profession 
9.	If such officer fron LIS is in this field and if he is in rural
region, definately there will be more coordination from rural people to
Librarian than a govt professional or other IPS professional.Rural people
have fear and complex about Govt employees but they respect and listen to
their librarians. 
10.	This will give status and Yes the job satisfaction too.

 

 Regards
 
Mrs Kshipra Sardesai
Librarian, RBI, DESACS
Bandra

 

sOn 3/11/08, Rajan <rajankila at hotmail.com> wrote:



	Dear Shri P Vyasamoorty,
	
	
	As a person with very good knowledge about RTI act and its
requirements, I
	would suggest that librarians are not very suitable for working as
State
	Public Information Officers(SPIO)  in the Institutions they work.
The job
	requirements of SPIO  are to receive applications, ensure access to
	information and dispose of applications after careful examination of
merit
	of each one. Under the RTI Act. the cataloging, arrangement and
retrieval of
	information need to be done by the concerned officer and not by
anyone else
	including the SPIO.
	As well, an officer in sufficient command and authority in that
office is
	the right choice for the position of SPIO so as to ensure easy
access to
	information through the subordinate officers. The job of SPIO
involves a lot
	of quasi-judicial decision making on which librarians are
ill-equipped
	unlike the administrative personnel.
	
	As RTI involves a lot of administrative re-arrangement of records,
the
	librarians can do a lot in that area, particularly in numbering and
	cataloguing of them.
	
	Best Regards,
	
	K Rajasekharan
	Librarian, Kerala Institute of Local Administration(KILA)
	Mulagunnathukavu, Thrissur - 680581 , India
	
	----- Original Message -----
	From: "Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy" <vyasamoorthy at gmail.com>
	Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] Right to Information Act -Jobs should be
	given to Information Professionals
	To: "vasanth raj"
	
	I am sorry to reply this message after such a long gap.
	Vasanth has raised an important issue. He states that Librarians are
	better suited to work as Information Officers and that they are
	neglected. I would like to ask a few questions and elicit views of
LIS
	personnel on these:
	How many librarians know what is this monster RTI all about? What is
	the role of RTI officer in a govt institution? What type of
	information is the scope of RTI Officer? How is the librarian better
	suited? What do we librarians learn or know about Govt way of files
(&
	records) organization - numbering, generation, storing, retrieving,
	archiving, rules governing files & documents & records preservation
	and conservation etc? How about confidentiality coding and providing
	restricted access? How about documents relating to public -- say
birth
	certificates. With absolutely no theoretical or practical knowledge
of
	any of these things how do librarians claim that they are better
	suited? The RTI was talked about for a number of years before
becoming
	law. Why did not LIS schools provide changes in the curriculam to
	mould librarians into RTI officers?
	Well I have a lot of doubts.  Any comments?
	
	
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