CHENNAI: Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-corruption NGO, on Tuesday released its ‘Anti-Corruption Election Manifesto’, proposing legal and administrative changes to be implemented across the state to curb corrupt practices. The organisation has appealed to all political parties to incorporate these recommendations in their manifesto for the upcoming election.
The manifesto specifies five measures to curb corruption - ensuring transparency, strengthening accountability, promoting public participation, and weeding out monopoly and discretion in contracts.
It wants the government to make voluntary disclosure of all public information under section 4 of RTI Act through a transparency portal similar to Jan Soochna portal in Rajasthan. It also seeks online RTI applications and first appeals for all departments, increasing information commissioners to 10, pressing the union to take back the 2023 RTI amendment exempting personal data through Digital Personal Data Protection Act, and urging to eliminate physical point of contact in government-to-citizen services by making them online.
The organisation urged parties to promise a statewide online grievance redressal portal with complaint trackers, and to focus on high-bribery departments such as revenue, registration, CMDA plan approvals and local bodies to make them graft-free. On accountability, it demanded a right to services Act, amendments to Tamil Nadu Lokayukta Act, 2018, making it an independent investigating agency, changes to the Prevention of Corruption Act to remove prior approval from the competent authority of the same department for initiating an inquiry/investigations, and to promise a whistleblowers protection Act.