Plan Panel says no to RTI in PPP projects

RTI is not Right to Information on private companies.

The Planning Commission has shot down a proposal of the Central Information Commission (CIC) to bring private entities executing projects under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode under the Right to Information (RTI) Act,arguing that it is applicable on public authority and not on private companies.

“RTI is not Right to Information on private companies. It pertains to information on public authority,” deputy chairman of Planning Commission,Montek Singh Ahluwalia,said while emerging from a seminar here today.

He questioned how a concessionaire,a private firm performs its job is not a relevant issue from the RTI point of view. He was responding to queries on the chief information commissioner Satyananda Mishra’s proposal on bringing private firms under RTI ambit.

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Currently the Act doesn’t refer to PPP projects. A public authority,as defined under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act includes a non-governmental body only if it is substantially financed by the Centre.

Mishra had advised the plan panel last month to modify its Model Concession Agreement to include these firms under the RTI ambit.

The CIC had contended that since the government provided substantial resources for PPP projects,the PPP entity should be deemed as a public authority and hence be made accountable under the RTI Act.

But Ahluwalia disagreed with the CIC’s contention and instead reasoned that RTI does not apply to the person performing the contract as that is a private entity and RTI applications should concentrate on the public sector component of the PPP project.

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