Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Indian officers in Honolulu for a summit? You will now spot it on the net

THE government has decided to disclose details of foreign and domestic official tours undertaken by ministers and officials of the rank of joint secretary and above on a suo motu basis. The information to be disclosed include:
places visited, the period, number of people included in the official delegation and total cost of such travel undertaken.
According to an office memorandum issued on September 11, 2012, the decision was taken in view of growing number of RTI applications asking information of details of official tours undertaken by ministers and officers.
The OM said that public authorities may proactively disclose the details of such tours under the provisions of Section 4 of the RTI Act, 2005.
Such disclosure will be made for visits since January 1, 2012, and those will be updated once in every quarter from July 1, 2012.
While placing the details of the visit in the official site, the departments will, however, take into consideration of the exemptions under Section 8 of the RTI Act, 2005. That means this suo motu disclosure will not be applicable to security and intelligence organisations under the second schedule of the RTI Act, 2005 and chief vigilance officers of public authorities.

1 comment:

  1. Catchy but inappropriate headline. But good article. I did not know it before

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