President Ramnath Kovind has said in a democracy, Information overload is always preferable to information deficit. Addressing the 13th annual convention of Central Information Commission in New Delhi, the President said, people have a right to know how they are being governed, how public money is being spent and how public and national resources are being deployed.
He said it is people’s right to know how public services are being delivered, and how public works and welfare programmes are being carried out. Mr. Kovind said, Right to Information is about nurturing the social contract of trust between the citizen and the state where both must have faith in each other.
The President said, a related and parallel implication is to ensure rational use of public resources to check instances of corruption or waste. He said, the Internet and the digital economy have been used to advance e-auctions of mining blocks. They have helped create the Government e-Market or GeM portal for public procurement of goods and services.
According to reports, there are half a million public information officers under the RTI Act. The estimate of requests for information is as high as six million requests a year.
