Centre directs departments to put expenditures in public domain

New Delhi: The Centre has asked all departments to immediately comply with its mandatory directive of proactive disclosure of information on public-private-partnership (PPP) projects, tours of ministers and officials, among others, by putting them in public domain. None of the departments has complied with the directive issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) almost over 21 months ago, mandating yearly third-party audit of such information, officials said.[caption id=“attachment_1291779” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Union Minister V Narayanasamy. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] It had asked the ministries or departments to also disclose details of discretionary or non-discretionary grants or allocations to state governments or NGOs and other departments. DoPT direction was issued in April last year as part of compulsory obligation by government departments under Section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. It was mentioned that each ministry or public authority shall ensure that the guidelines for suo motu disclosure under RTI were fully operationalised within a period of six months from the date of their issuance – 15 April 2013. “It was also requested that the action taken report on the compliance of guidelines should be sent, alongwith the URL link, to DoPT and the Central Information Commission (CIC) soon after the expiry of the initial period of the six months. “It has been noticed that most of the ministries or departments or public authorities have not sent the compliance report or action taken report to this department and CIC,” DoPT said in a recently issued office memorandum. It is once again requested that the guidelines be complied with at the earliest and compliance report sent to this department and CIC, immediately, it added. The move behind putting information in public domain was to make the functioning of the public authorities more transparent and also to reduce the need for filing individual RTI applications, DoPT had said in its 15 April directive. Section 4 of RTI Act mandates disclosure of almost all matters of governance by all public authorities on a suo motu or proactive basis. All information relating to PPPs must be disclosed in the public domain by the public authority entering into the PPP contract or concession agreement, according to the directive. “This may include details of the special purpose vehicle (SPV), if any, set up, detailed project reports, concession agreements, operation and maintenance manuals and other documents generated as part of the implementation of the PPP project,” said the guidelines issued by DoPT for voluntary disclosure. DoPT has also directed ministries to disclose details of foreign and domestic tours being undertaken by Central government ministers and officials. “Public authorities may proactively disclose the details of foreign and domestic official tours undertaken by the minister(s) and officials of the rank of joint secretary to the Government of India and above and heads of department, since January 1, 2012. The disclosures may be updated once every quarter,” the guidelines said. Information about fees, tolls or other kinds of revenue that may be collected under authorisation from the government, information in respect of outputs and outcomes and process of selection of the private sector party may also be proactively disclosed, they said. DoPT guidelines also lay an obligation on departments to publicise all transfer orders through the website or any other manner. All public authorities may also proactively disclose the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and Public Accounts Committee (PAC) paras and the action taken reports only after these have been laid on the table of both the Houses of Parliament, they said. However, CAG paragraphs dealing with information about the issues of sovereignty, integrity, security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State would be exempted from disclosure, the guidelines said. “All discretionary or non-discretionary grants or allocations to state governments or NGOs and other institutions by ministry or department should be placed on the website of the ministry or department concerned,” they said. PTI