Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today accused the Jammu and Kashmir government of institutional incompetence which is slowly rendering the Right to Information Act a "toothless tiger" in the state.
"The manner in which hurdles are deliberately being created to avoid effective RTI implementation apparently points to only conclusion that the government and its administration are hell bent on avoiding answers as it fears that 'Genie' may come out of the bottle," PDP general secretary Mohammad Dilawar Mir said in a statement here.
He alleged that the National Conference-led coalition government has even found innovative ways and ideas to circumvent the Act, by either making absurd excuses or make its process tedious.
Mir claimed that right from the beginning, the Act and its process has been subjected to brazen commercialisation and despite Chief Information Commissioner's recommendation and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's hollow assurance vis-a-vis slashing of RTI application fee and photostat charges, nothing has been done so far.
"Creating bottlenecks in RTI process underlines determination of the government to ensure that no institution comes to fore which has the potential to eliminate corruption, irregularities and unaccountability in the government," the PDP leader said.
Dilawar said the people are losing faith in the present government vis-a-vis RTI, and they want results rather than being bombarded with rhetoric all the time.
"Disregarding the Act by not furnishing the requisite information and failure to evoke any response to letters of SIC, is a glaring example of how the government is pushing the Act to a permanent impotency," he alleged.
