The Indian Express                12.06.2013

Govt fiat to PMC: Make details of foreign tours of corporators and officials public

With fresh guidelines in place for digital publication and disclosure under Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will now have to publish details of official foreign trips undertaken by its corporators and civic officers.

As per the government notification, the guidelines for suo motu disclosure on official website make it mandatory to put detailed information in public domain on a proactive basis. This will make the functioning of the public authorities more transparent and also reduce the need for filing individual RTI applications., the notification read.

"The quantity and quality of proactive disclosure were not up to the desired level and so there was a need for detailed guidelines," it said.

"The new guidelines specify disclosure of certain information on the website including the details of official foreign tours undertaken by elected representatives and officers," said D P More, Deputy Municipal Commissioner.

He said information about the nature, place and period of foreign and domestic tours along with the total cost of the trips should be disclosed on the PMC website, which should be updated every three months. "The notification has been sent to all civic departments. A lot of things have been included in the new list of disclosures and the departments should publish information related to it," said More.

The Employees' Welfare Department of the PMC has already been uploading information on the website. "We have been publishing information on the website and will be disclosing more information as per the new guidelines," said an officer.

Another important information that is usually kept secret is the details of grants given to various organisations by the civic body. "All grants given by the civic body and the annual report of beneficiaries should also be disclosed on the website," said RTI activist Vihar Durve.

He said the new list of disclosures makes it mandatory to publish the decision-making chart of every department along with the operating information.

All information relating to Public Private Partnership (PPP) have to be put in the public domain besides detailed project reports, concession agreements, operation and maintenance manuals, read the notification.