‘No such thing as too much information in democracy, overload preferable to deficit’
NEW DELHI: President Ram Nath Kovind Friday strongly advocated transparency in governance, saying there is no such thing as “too much information” in a democracy and “information overload” is always preferable to deficit.
Inaugurating the 13th annual convention of the Central Information Commission, the highest appellate authority in RTI matters, the president also made a strong pitch for the declassification procedure and maintenance of archives.
There is also need to look at our declassification protocols for government and archival documents, and see how we can modernise these, he said.
The president said India
has appointed half-a-million public information officers under the RTI Act with the estimated requests for information touching as high as six million requests a year which are astounding numbers.
“In a democracy, there is no such thing as too much information. Information overload is always preferable to information deficit,” Kovind said.
He 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. “A related and parallel implication is to ensure rational use of public resources to check instances of corruption or waste,” he said.
To inform, trust and ultimately empower ordinary citizens are admirable goals, but frankly they are not ends in themselves, Kovind, who is the fourth president to address the annual gathering, said.
It is only when we link this process to the realisation of definite objectives that engage, enable and ensure efficiency and so serve to make life that much better for the citizen that we complete the narrative of democracy. RTI is part of such a wider theme, he said.