Mizo govt to appoint information officers

Aizawl, May 15 : The Mizoram government has started appointing information officers to implement the Right To Information (RTI) act in the state.

Apart from appointing 429 information officers in various departments, eight departmental appellate authorities were also being inducted, sources in the staff Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DI&PR) informed UNI today.

More than ten different departments have already started entertaining queries since the RTI was introduced in Mizoram on October 12, 2005.

The Law department has given approval to the Mizoram RTI rules while the budget was yet to be approved by the Finance department.

As has been notified by the government, fees should not be collected from citizens seeking information from the government until and unless the RTI rules are in use.

State information commissioner and his staff would also be appointed shortly, the officials said adding the state's Information department and the administrative training institute (ATI) have jointly organised training on RTI for SPIOs and SAPIOs four times with experts from outside as resource persons. More such trainings are to be organised in the year.

UNI