The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has constituted the consultancy committee of key stakeholders for advice on suo motu disclosure under the Right to Information Act, 2005, with six members under Joint Drugs Controller (India) Ranga Chandrashekar, with immediate effect.
The Committee, constituted based on the guidelines issued by the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) in April 15, 2023, is to decide on the information which should be disclosed by the CDSCO on a suo motu or proactive basis.
Apart from Chandrashekar, who is the Chairperson of the Committee, the other six members comprise Sunil Kulshrestha, Deputy Drugs Controller (India)-Coordination, as the Member Secretary, and Dileep Kumar Rajput, Director (Administration), Dr Gouri Shankar, CPIO (RTI), CDSCO headquarters, Dr Jay Jyoti Roy, representative of IT cell, A Senkathir, representative of Legal Cell/Deputy Drugs Controller (India), and Pawan Kumar, Administrative Office/Deputy Director (Administration), as members.
The Committee shall review compliance with Section 4(1)(b) disclosures by CDSCO, identify records or information suitable for proactive disclosure, recommend measures for enhancing transparency and accessibility of information, ensure period review and updating of RTI disclosures on the CDSCO website, review the status of disclosures by the CDSCO headquarters, zonal and sub-zonal offices, laboratories and port offices, and suggest digitisation and public dissemination measures for improving proactive disclosure.
The Committee shall also submit period recommendations or reports to the Competent Authority, as per the Act.
It may co-opt any officers or officials or seek inputs from any division or office of CDSCO, as deemed necessary by the Chairperson. The Member Secretary shall coordinate meetings of the Committee and maintain records of proceedings and recommendation, it added.
Under the Section 4(1)(b) of the Act, which lays down the information which should be disclosed by public authorities on a proactive basis, the public authorities shall publish several information including the particulars of its organisation, functions and duties, the powers and duties of its officers and employees, the procedure followed in the decision making process, including channels of supervision and accountability, the norms set by it for discharge of its functions, the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions, and the particulars of any arrangement that exists for consultation with, or representation by the members of the public in relation to the formulation of its policy or implementation.
The authority shall also publish a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies consisting of two or more persons constituted as its part or for the purpose of its advice, and as to whether meetings of those boards, councils, committees and other bodies are open to the public, or the minutes of such meetings are accessible for public, directory of staff, monthly remuneration of each of them, budget allocated to each of its agency, manner of execution of subsidy programmes, among others, under the particular sub section.
It may be noted that in April 15, 2013, the Department of Personnel & Training under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, issued a guideline for central government ministries and departments for such proactive disclosures, identifying that the quality and quantity of such disclosure is not up to the desired level. It felt that the weak implementation is owing to lack of detailed guidelines, and a compliance mechanism need to be set up to ensure that the requirements under Section 4 of the RTI Act are met.
Under the Section, as per the guidelines, the public authority should provide provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communication, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to use the Act to obtain information.
This include information related to procurement, public private partnerships, transfer policy and transfer orders, RTI applications, CAG and PAC paras and Action Taken Reports laid on the table of both the houses of the Parliament, citizens charter, discretionary and non-discretionary grants, among others.
Websites should contain detailed information from the point of origin to the point of delivery of entitlements or services provided by the public authorities to citizens, orders of the public authority immediately they have been issued, relevant Acts, Rules, forms and other documents which are normally accessed by citizens, and detailed directory of key contacts, details of officials of the Public Authority, among others.
