THIRD PARTY AUDIT UNDER RTI ACT 2005,BY ANY GOVERNMENT TRAINING INSTITUTE, IN RESPECT OF MINISTRY/DEPARTMENT/PUBLIC AUTHORITY (9--A)

Third party audit under RTI act 2005 , by any government training Institute in respect of Ministry/Department/public authority the guidelines issued by the department vide OM dated 15-4-2013 , which were reiterated on 7-11-2019 with slight modification on implementation of suo motu disclosure by all public authorities under section 4 of the RTI act and subsequently carrying out the third party audit of their third party disclosure. (2) Further vide OM dated 30-6-2016 and OM of even number dated 15-10-2019, the provision related to third party audit of suo motu disclosure by the public authorities was clarified and relaxed and it was provided that the task of undertaking transparency audits may be given to respective Government training institutes by Ministry/Department/public authority and across the states and the Union territories. However , in cases where no training Institute exists under the Ministry/Department/public authority, the task of undertaking transparency audits may be given to any Government training Institute.(4) The department in receipt of multiple requests from different public authorities seeking relaxation/clarification in respect of provisions related to third party audit of proactive disclosure in implementation of the section 4 of the RTI act on account of substantial difference in audit cost charged by different auditing training institutes, shortage of manpower/adequately trained manpower, pre-engagement of the training institute with its scheduled training activities, etc. (4) This issue has been examined in view of the difficulties being faced by the public authorities in undertaking the third party audit of their proactive disclosure in terms of Guidelines, dated 7-11-2019 and it has been decided that the task of undertaking transparency audits may be given to any training Institutes by Ministry/Department/Public Authority, under the Central or the State Governments. Accordingly, all the Ministries/Departments are requested to take appropriate action and ensure that the above instructions are communicated to their attached and the subordinate offices/PSUs/Public authorities for wide implementation and compliance in order to carry out the third party audit of their proactive disclosure. All the above referred OMs are accessible at www.dopt.gov.in -Notification-OMs&Orders--RTI.:-- Er Fateh Chand Guleria, C/O RTI Welfare Association registered number HPCD 3552 Bilaspur Himachal pradesh phone number 9459334377