?There is a need for the Right to Information (RTI) Act to be directly applicable to corporate houses,? said chief information commissioner(CIC) of India Wazahat Habibullah.
?That?s because with the liberalisation of the economy, private companies are closely working with the governments.” Habibullah was in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday to deliver the foundation day lecture of the Centre for Youth and Social Development, a state-level NGO working for people?s right to information.
Habibullah suggested that there should be different mechanisms for eliciting information from them. He said there was a possibility of the authority denying information related to corporate houses and other business concerns citing section 8(d) of the RTI Act. This section of the Act says that there shall be no obligation to give any citizen information, including commercial confidence trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which may harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information. Habibullah said the CIC plans to submit a proposal to bring corporate houses under the direct purview of the RTI Act. On states implementing the RTI Act, he said Delhi and Maharastra were doing extremely well in this area.
He also said there was an urgent need for e-governance so that citizens are able to get information just by walking into a roadside cyber caf? instead of repeatedly visiting government offices. “When the USA can, why can?t we?” he asked. The CIC took note of the developments in Orissa, particularly a recent instruction by chief secretary AK Tripathy to all state government departments, to list all categories of documents held by them in 21 days. Everyone will be able to access the list once it was uploaded on to the net, he added.