RTI implementation audit by students unveiled

Bangalore, Sep 28: In a bid to involve youth in civic participation, Public Affairs Centre (PAC) brought together college students here to bring out the success level of Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The Act envisages to bring about good governance and transparency in public administration.

The study comes a fortnight ahead of the third anniversary of the realisation of the RTI Act and presents the Information Officers' perspective and their unique organisational experiences.

These findings were presented by the students who conducted the study at an event held in the city yesterday.

Mr K K Mishra, Chief Information Commissioner, Karnataka State Information Commission, presided over the event in which Mr Ralph Frammolino, Faculty, Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media, Prof Samuel Paul, Founder-Chairperson, PAC and Dr Gopakumar Thampi, Director, PAC participated.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Paul said RTI was a powerful and empowering tool. Unfortunately its awareness was very low. There was also limited information on implementation of this critical piece of legislation.

''With the youth constituting more than half of India's population, their active participation in the governance of the country becomes very crucial. This initiative is a very encouraging sign of youth involvement,'' he said.

Elaborating on the study and key findings, Dr Thampi, Director, PAC, stated that the audit was conducted for a two-fold purpose -- to shed light on its implementation and to give the youth a hands-on experience -- by actively participating on governance-related issues.

UNI