In an attempt to pre-empt a major administrative reform, bureaucrats of the Personnel Ministry have even pulled the rug from under the feet of the National Advisory Council (NAC) chaired by Congress President Sonia Gandhi.Though the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has been stuck in the pipeline for over 20 months, the Personnel Ministry came up last week with a set of draft rules aimed at bringing the law into force in its existing form.The draft rules have been announced just when the NAC, which includes social activists and independent experts, is in the process of making radical recommendations to the Government on the improvements that need to be made to the FOIA. Sonia Gandhi had taken up the FOIA issue in the NAC in keeping with the UPA Government’s specific promise in its Common Minimum Programme (CMP) that the law would be made ‘‘more progressive, participatory and meaningful.’’But far from reflecting any such concerns, the Personnel Ministry put out the draft rules based on the existing provisions and invited the public to respond to them by this month-end.The draft rules have just three operative clauses:• Section 4 of FOIA mandates that every government organisation would have to publish information about itself ‘‘at such intervals as may be prescribed.’’ The draft rules prescribe that the information should be published every two years.• Another clause of the draft rules lays down that anybody seeking information would have to pay a fee of Rs 50 along with the application and an additional Rs 5 for every page of information. This proposed fee is substantially higher than what is charged by Maharashtra where the application costs Rs 10 and the information could be given for as little as 50 paise per page.• The draft rules also identify the officers who shall serve as appellate authorities under the Act.The attempt of the bureaucracy to bring the law into force in its existing form is at odds with the report that the NAC is poised to submit recommending broadly that the areas outside the purview of the FOIA should be reduced further and that penalties should be slapped on the officers who unjustly deny information or give wrong information.
