Modi Government Will Not Allow Corruption: Minister Jitendra Singh

Jitendra Singh – a minister in Prime Minister’s office – interacted Monday with the members of Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC) in Delhi.

While interacting with the women journalists, who are also the members of the Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC), Jitendra Singh said that there were apprehension emerging in some sections of the society and media that there was a move by the Narendra Modi government to dilute or curtail the Right To Information (RTI) Act.

He said that this apprehension is baseless, and on the contrary, he added that the government, has worked on the principle of increasing citizen participation in governance, with more accountability and transparency in the last four years.

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Jitendra Singh said it was during this government that all the 11 vacancies of the Central Information Commission were sought to be filled by the government whereas, during the earlier times, there had been occasions when sometimes, Information Commission was functioning with just three or four members.

Not only this, he said, the pendency of the RTI applications has been tremendously brought down and the time of disposal has also been curtailed. The Minister said that in the last four years, most of the public authorities numbering around 2000, have been brought under the purview of the RTI Act, which was not so earlier.

Answering a question on the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act 2018, he said that the government has a policy of ‘zero tolerance’ towards corruption and with the passing of this Bill the prevailing corrupt practices can be curtailed.

On the issue of lateral entry into the bureaucracy, he said that this practice has been there even in the past and the government has tried to institutionalize it and streamline it so that the process is more objective and will bring specialists into the system.

Photo courtesy: Press Information Bureau