Hyderabad: City based social activist S Q Masood on Thursday shot-off a letter to Telangana chief secretary Somesh Kumar, asking the latter to ensure that there is better implementation of the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) 2005 across government departments.
Masood is his letter to Kumar claimed that there is lack of transparency and accountability in the functioning of the Telangana government at present. Masood stressed on the lack of implementation of section 4 of the RTI Act, 2005 in the state.
He said, “Different government departments in the state are not maintaining information on their website, or have published part information which is outdated and creating a lot of inconvenience.”
The activist then said that the informed citizens are better equipped to keep necessary vigil on the instruments of governance; especially in cases where the government orders (GO) pertain to the public.
Masood also posted the letter on his Twitter handle, and tagged state IT and industries minister KT Rama Rao. Reacting to his letter, Congress leader Feroz Khan also commented on the activist’s tweet, and said that the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government had passed an order (by Somesh Kumar) which curtailed the freedom of officers in giving out information to the general public.
The article was earlier published by Siasat.com.
In a letter dated October 13 2021, Somesh Kumar had asked all special chief secretaries, principal secretaries and secretaries to the government of Telangana to instruct Public Information Officers (PIO) appointed under the RTI Act to obtain their “orders” before furnishing the information to applicants concerned.
