Academics from across Pakistan commit to studying RTI and pushing for its inclusion in Academic and Training Institute curricula

at a two-day Briefing for Pakistani Academia on the State of Right to Information

(RTI) and its Implementation agreed that RTI needs to be studied as an academic

subject and included in the curricula of Universities and Government Training

Institutes across Pakistan. They also agreed that effective implementation of

RTI was necessary to improve responsiveness, accountability and transparency

of RTI: Experiences from across the border”, distinguished speakers from

India provided details on the extent to which RTI was being implemented effectively

and being used by the public to access rights and social services. Ms. Anjali

Bhardwaj, Co-convener, National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information,

said that 4-6 million RTI applications were being filed in India every year

due to tremendous demand for public information and government accountability

audience of the progress in implementing RTI provisions within government and

the impact this had on governance within both Provinces. Mr. Mohsin Abbas, Managing

Director, Punjab Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), said that RTI had

changed the nature of governance and citizen-state relations in both developed

and developing countries. He also explained the importance of the PPRA’s

initiatives in making government procurement open to public scrutiny and eliminating

corruption in the implementation of government contracts. Mr. Shehryar Memon,

Deputy Secretary, KP Reform and Implementation Cell, while speaking of the KP

Government’s initiative in making data on its performance public, was

of the view that effective implementation of RTI was a major reason for improved

Commissioner of Punjab felt that the performance of the Punjab Information Commission

in ensuring proper implementation of RTI was being hampered due to lack of financial

support and cooperation from the Punjab Government. In this regard, he spoke

of delays in the release of the Commission’s Budget and appointment of

apprised the audience of the KP RTI Commission’s initiative to launch

toll-free helplines and an online web portal to aid the public in accessing

information under RTI. He added that the Commission’s campaign to improve

public awareness of RTI, especially in rural areas, was gradually making public

Multan and Peshawar participated in the Briefings, which were organised to generate

informed debate on how to improve implementation of RTI in Pakistan at both

Federal and Provincial levels. Participants also included Faculty from Kinnaird

College for Women , International Islamic University Islamabad, Bahauddin Zakariya

University, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Forman Christian College,

Quaid-e-Azam University, National University of Science and Technology (NUST),

Bahria University, Beaconhouse National University, University of Punjab as

well as the Directing Staff of the National School of Public Policy and the

Management and Professional Development Department, Lahore, and the National

of Right to Information and its Implementation was organised by PILDAT under

the More effective Right-To-Information (RTI) at Federal and Provincial level

(Sindh and Punjab) Project, for which it has received financial support from

Development Alternative Inc. (DAI) under the Enhanced Democratic Accountability

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