Chief Information Commissioner sees need of RTI promotion from local level

Chitwan, June 22 : Chief Information Commissioner, Krishnahari Baskota, has spoken of the need of establishing information commissions in all seven provinces to ensure the people’s right to information (RTI).

In his address to a discussion programme on ‘the status of enforcement of RTI’ jointly organised by the Federation of Nepali Journalists ( FNJ), Chitwan and National Information Commission (NIC), he said that it was necessary to decentralize NIC power to provinces and local levels so as to promote RTI from the grass root level.

According to him, only 30 percent government offices have implemented the RTI Act. Only 700 offices, out of 25,000, are releasing official information of public interests on a regular basis (every three month). As he said, only 10 percent of the total population have currently exercised RTI.

FNJ vice chair Bipul Pokhrel said the exercise of RTI was for empowering and making the citizen informed. It was also useful for the field of journalism to disseminate qualitative and fact-based news.

Chitwan’s Chief District Officer, Jitendra Basnet, said some 80 government offices in the district had appointed information officer. Nepal Press Union senior vice chair Deepak Acharya and FNJ Chitwan chair, Radheshyam Khatiwada demanded full enforcement of the RTI Act.