By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, APR 07, 2017: The Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Dr. Jitendra Singh informed in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, about the RTI applications being received.

The total number of applications received, rejected and pending with the Ministries, as intimated by the CIC, are as under:

The Government has issued instructions to all the Ministries/Departments of Govt. of India from time to time impressing upon the Public Authorities to disclose maximum information proactively under Section 4 of RTI Act, so as to reduce the need for filing RTI applications by the citizens.

For speedy disposal of pending cases the Government has taken several steps like capacity building through training of Central Public Information Officers (CPIOs) / Public Information Officers (PIOs) and issue of guidelines for PIOs and First Appellate Authorities (FAAs), so as to enable them to supply information / dispose of first appeal effectively, resulting into less number of ‘First Appeals' and ‘Appeals' to the Information Commission.

As informed by the Central Information Commission (CIC), out of a total 160 sanctioned posts in various categories, as on March 31, 2017, 148 posts have been filled up either by regular staff or by contractual/outsourced staff. At present, there are 12 posts which are vacant.