New Delhi: The CIC has directed the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, to furnish a revised and detailed reply on queries related to the basis for fixing wages of contract workers at a cement unit in Uttar Pradesh.
The Central Information Commission (CIC) noted that the earlier response provided by the department was incomplete and did not address all aspects raised in the Right to Information (RTI) application.
In his RTI application, the appellant had raised three specific questions. These included whether the unit is run under the central or state government rules, and which rules applied earlier when it functioned as a government factory.
He also asked, “When the price of cement produced is decided by the central government, then on what basis the rate of wages of the contract labourers working in the factory is determined by the state government?”
During the hearing, the respondent submitted that the cement industry “was deregulated in 1989 and delicensed in 1991 under the policy of economic liberalisation”.
“Thus, the Government of India does not control cement prices, and the administration/management of the cement industry,” it said, adding that this had already been conveyed to the appellant earlier.
The Commission, however, found gaps in the reply. It observed that the respondent failed to clarify “if there are any rules/guidelines/office memorandum that form the basis on which the rate of wages of the contract labourers working in the aforesaid factory is decided”.
It also noted that no satisfactory response was provided on this specific aspect during the hearing.
“The respondent did not give an appropriate para-wise reply to the appellant. The respondent had provided some available factual information. However, the same does not answer all three points in consonance with the RTI Act, 2005,” the Commission said.
Directing corrective action, the CIC ordered the respondent to provide a revised point-wise reply to the appellant, “incorporating the documents/rules/guidelines/factual information with respect to the sought information” as to whether the unit is run according to the rules made by the central government or those made by the state government.
The reply should clearly address whether the unit is “run as per the rules made by the Central Government or the rules made by the State Government; the basis on which the rate of wages of the contract labourers working in the aforesaid factory is decided etc. as per the RTI Act, 2005”, it said.
