GS Mains Model Question & Answer : Discuss Transparency, Participation and accountability through Open Government? Comment

Q. Discuss Transparency, Participation and accountability through Open Government? Discuss. Comment

Model Answer:

Discuss Transparency, Participation and accountability through Open Government?

Openness through transparency becomes a means to greater civic participation in an enabled environment, where there is effective free flow of information both ways, to see through the working of the government; and to verify whether or not public servants are meeting their obligations to expectations of citizens.

All the four components of accountability i.e. answerability, sanction, redress, and system improvement need information to account for unacceptable conduct, decisions, and actions. The gaps in conventional supply side accountability have led to the emergence of demand side accountability. “Social Accountability is the institutionalization of durable societal control over policies and their implementation. Civil society is progressively showing tremendous potential to participate directly in institutions of horizontal accountability.

This can extend to all faces of development process, viz., planning (people’s planning), programming, budgeting (budget analysis, participatory budgeting), release of funds (publication of funds released, public expenditure review), award of contracts (procurement watch, integrity pact), and monitoring of contracts (independent quality inspection). Post planning, this may extend to implementation (hospital advisory, management committees, community forest management), progress of implementation (corruption watch) and evaluation (citizen report card, community scorecards) and audit (public hearing, participatory audit, citizen audit request, monitoring of audit compliance, general law on social audit)”. Open government can thus be said to have three components viz.

• Right to information
• Civic engagement in the processes of governance, and
• Accountability for what the government or the public servant says and does

The early tidings of open government in India can be said to have begun with the landmark judgment of Justice P. N. Bhagawati of the Supreme Court of India in 1981, where, besides giving a general description of open government he stressed the need for increased disclosure in matters relating to public affairs. Noting that open government means ‘information available to the public with greater exposure of the functioning of government which would help assure the people a better and more efficient administration’ he went on to describe Open Government in India to be, “the new democratic culture of an open society towards which every liberal democracy is moving and our country (India) should be no exception.

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