New Delhi: After a Right to Information applicant sought answers to 18 questions on India’s response to Covid-19, the Central Information Commission (CIC) asked the health ministry to “compile all the measures taken by various ministries and list them chronologically on its website.”

The recent order issued by chief information commissioner Bimal Julka stated that the RTI “application was shuttled from one division of the public authority to another which indicates that there is a very urgent requirement for collating the information”.

The applicant had approached all top bodies, including ministries for external affairs, home affairs, health, Indian Council of Medical Research, National Centre for Disease Control and NITI Aayog, for answers. The applicant in April had sought answers to questions which include the date on which the Centre first received information on the virus affecting China and details of meetings it carried out with regard to a potential health crisis between November 2019 and March 2020.

He had specifically sought to know how the Centre had planned to control the pandemic between March 5 and 14, when deaths in China and Europe had already crossed 4,000 and 6,000, respectively. He had sought the minutes of the meetings held among top officials regarding this.