RTI must grow to cover parties and India Inc, not retreat in the name of privacy
Information is power. Explosive information is lethal. News is what someone somewhere wants to hide. Everything else is publicity. With the public and the media digging more and publicising less, the ruling establishment is finding it extremely difficult to put the genie back into the bottle. The UPA, which sired the innovative Right to Information Act, is now rueing the day when it faithfully accepted the idea floated by its leader Sonia Gandhi. For the past few months, RTI has caused more agony to the government than the frequent parliamentary disruptions by the entire Opposition. As RTI completes seven years of its existence, the government seems to be in a hurry to chop its feet off before it starts running after information. The Prime Minister himself set the tone for the dilution of RTI when he pleaded for its review in his address to vigilance officials drawn from all over the country. He struck at the very foundation of the RTI Act when he said, “There are concerns about frivolous and vexatious use of the Act in demanding information the disclosure of which cannot possibly serve any public purpose.”
The Prime Minister hinting at curbing the scope of the RTI
Act is bemusing. In an environment of confrontation between the government and
civil society, the hunger for information is growing. While Manmohan Singh did
suggest the inclusion of the corporate sector in the Prevention of Corruption
Act (PCA), he refrained from making any commitment for its inclusion in RTI. If
the growing list of scams is any indication, it would be prudent for the
government to expand RTI’s scope to include not only all government agencies
but also public-funded NGOs, trusts and educational institutions, sports
bodies, political parties, media organisations and listed and unlisted
corporate houses which receive funds from public sector banks. In spite of the
massive hike in financial allocations to development schemes and the
infrastructure sector, the actual delivery on the ground is almost negligible.
Of late, a new concept of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model has been
developed by those who want to avoid public scrutiny of their projects. Under
this model, the government provides massive amounts of money and even land to
private individuals to construct roads, hospitals, airports and toll roads.
These projects are built and operated by private entities over which government
has no control. Most toll roads are symbols of massive corruption and
mismanagement, but they have been kept out of the ambit of the RTI Act. The
petroleum ministry is engaged in a running battle with Reliance Industries over
the Comptroller & Auditor General of India’s scrutiny of capital
expenditure incurred by the company on gas exploration. Similarly, various road
projects and airport expansion plans are facing charges of financial
irregularities. But they refuse to be audited by the CAG. Manmohan struck the
right chord when he pointed out that big-ticket corruption was mostly related
to operations by large commercial entities. He concluded, “It is, therefore,
also proposed to include corporate failure to prevent bribery as a new offence
on the supply side. We are also examining how the Act can be amended to protect
honest public servants more effectively.” The Prime Minister hit where it hurts
the most—the top leadership admitting that the India’s high economic growth may
have contributed to the rise in graft cases and crony capitalism.
However, only a legislative measure may not be enough. Since
political donations are the biggest source of influencing government policies,
all political parties should be brought under the RTI Act. All of them put
together collect over `1,000 crore officially, but the donors’ names are only
known to a few leaders in each party. Surprisingly, no party has supported the
idea of making it mandatory for all political outfits to make full disclosures
about the sources of their income. According to conservative estimates, all the
registered national and regional parties spend over `10,000 crore on contesting
elections. The most effective method of controlling corruption is to make it
compulsory for all political leaders to declare their incomes, the list of
donors for their campaigns and the assets of their dependents and independent
children. All political parties have stonewalled the efforts of RTI activists
to collect information on the use of private aircraft by leaders—for both
domestic and international travel. According to aviation industry sources,
politicians consume over 50 per cent of the flying hours of 300 privately owned
aircraft and helicopters. For new age political leaders, it is air, not ground,
contact with their voters, which is the most effective way of seeking a public
mandate. Since they don’t foot the bills themselves, it doesn’t cost them money
or subject them to the physical torture of arduous journeys along India’s
potholed roads. Besides, most of the big companies spend huge amounts of money
in the name of business development and corporate relations to influence
opinion and decision makers. But no amount of allurements, threats, coercive
and administrative means and methods can now tame the growing appetite of the
people—not for food and fun—but for information.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
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