Info Commission trying to get into business

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UNB, Dhaka :
Though the Information Commission was onstituted back in 2009, people had hardly been able to reap benefits from the Right of Information Act (RTI) for various reasons, but now the Commission is trying to get into business.
The government established the commission to enforce the Right to Information Act it passed in the same year and ease the process of ensuring transparency in the works of those who are in power.
The Commission in its annual report 2016 mentioned that some 682 complaints were filed with it by aggrieved information seekers from 2009-2016.
Of these complaints, 1,028 were followed up by

hearings, the annual report said. The Commission got bolstered once Prof Dr Golam Rahman of Dhaka University’s Mass Communication and Journalism department was made the Chief Information Commissioner.
In 2016 when Dr Golam Rahman was appointed, 364 out of 539 complaints that were filed were followed up with hearing sessions.
According to the Commission’s statistics, 257 of those complaints were filed by general citizens, 21 by jobholders, 75 by journalists and one each by a lawyer, freedom fighter and a teacher.
Of the complaints, 466 were against various government offices and 73 against private offices.
According to the annual report, 24,734 officers were trained by the commission from 2010-2016, while 5,920 in 2016 alone, which included journalists and other non-government officials.

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