Departments asked to appoint public information officers

LAHORE: Under the Right to Information Act, people’s access to public record is their fundamental right and all departments should ensure the appointment of chief public information officers to facilitate the masses in this regard.

This was stated by Chief Information Commissioner Mehboob Qadir Shah while addressing a meeting of chief public information officers of various departments at Civil Secretariat on Thursday. He said his department was struggling to ensure the provision of timely and accurate information to people, adding that complete implementation on Right to Information Act will be ensured at any cost. The meeting was also attended by Information commissioner Saeed Akhtar Ansari, Information Commissioner Hassan Iqbal and Secretary I&C Makhtar Masood. Chief Information Commissioner highlighted various aspects of Information Act 2013 and said PIC has disposed of three thousand complaints in one year besides arranging approximately 50 training and public information awareness seminars. He said under Right to Information Act 2013 commission, besides sorting out complaints against PIOs of government departments, gave importance to reveal the information through the web portal.

Information commissioner Saeed Akhtar Ansari said that Right to Information Act 2013 has eliminated the policy of keeping government record classified now all public records have been made available for public. Information Commissioner Hassan Iqbal said 24 out of 25 clauses of Right to Information Act 2013 is in the favor of revealing information whereas only one clause permits to conceal the information under specific circumstances. Secretary I&C Mukhtar Masood said the role of Chief Information Public Officer is of great importance for the success of the Right to Information Act. He said Punjab government appreciates the performance of Punjab Information Commission. He on behalf of Punjab government and chief secretary assured full cooperation for the complete implementation of the right to information act. He said that directions have been issued to all the departments by Chief Secretary Punjab to appoint chief information officer.

BISE: Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education (BISE) Lahore Chairman Prof Ch Muhammad Ismail has said that no part-II paper of intermediate annual examination 2019 has been leaked and all the examination process of the examination is going on very smoothly and in a transparent manner. Similarly, there is no truth in the leakage of papers on social media sites. In a statement issued here on Thursday, Prof Ismail said that Lahore board has made elaborate arrangements to ensure complete transparency of the examination process. In this regard, an examination superintendent has also been handed over to the police for violating the devised SOPs and further investigation is under way. He said that more than three lakh and 60 thousand students are taking part in the intermediate examinations and 577 exam centers have been established for them in Lahore, Nankana Sahib, Sheikhupura and Kasur districts where four thousand examination staff is deputed for holding the examination. Meanwhile, mobile teams are also working in the field for a surprise inspection of exam centers. Prof Ismail said that Lahore Board is the largest board in the country which conducts exams of lakhs of students every year. Lahore board always makes detailed arrangements for timely and transparent conduction of exams, he added.