Activist urges to play pro-active role on RTI Act

Bhubaneswar: The 2006 Ramon Magasaysay award winner and noted activist Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday urged to create the "RTI Information Line" in Orissa in line of Bihar experience that is helping people filing RTI application over telephone. Speaking at a news conference here, the activist gave his assessment on the operation of RTI act in the State. The RTI Information line was started in Bihar in January 2007 and experience suggest that it has worked very well and has made the filing of application process very easy even for an illiterate person. There is a special phone number for the purpose. What a person has to do is simply dial the number and says his name, address of correspondence and the nature of information s/he seeks. The application fee comes in his/her telephone bill in the end of the month. In case of the call made from the PCOs, the bill, which comes, includes the call cost and the application fee cost.   "Even when a person who does not know what RTI is, said over phone that he has not got his/her ration card, the call centre persons are so trained that they form a questionnaire out of the submission by the person by further discussing with him. This way the Bihar Government is in a sense 'hand holding' the people" adds the activist. Giving his assessment of the functioning of RTI in the State, he said that it has done wonders in many places of the State. In Kalahandi, about 2200 tribals have got their land pattas under Vasundhara scheme by use of RTI. He however added that the level of awareness of people about RTI in the State is very low in general. He however expressed concerns over the increasing pendency of cases in the State Information Commission (SIC) and that the SIC is not invoking the penalty clause to penalize the officers violating the RTI act. "On an average one Commissioner disposes one case in a day, which is quite low. As per statistics the Commission has disposed about 800 cases in last 17 months of functioning and still 800 cases are pending." In UP and Maharastra, due the very high number of case pending the act has almost failed there. Let us save orissa from similar situation, he urged. Out of 800 cases heard by the Commission only 19 officials have been penalized and out of that only in three cases, penalties have been recovered. "We are not against any officials, but its necessary that the penalty clause is invoked in each case of violation of RTI act by the PIOs or departments to deter the tendency of denial of information by the bureaucracy. In case of Arunachal Pradesh, out of 27 cases heard 23 penalties have been imposed. This sends a clear message to the bureaucracy that they better give the information than to create situation of sending appeals to the Commission. So invoking of penalty clause will also reduce the number of cases coming to the commission's level," he said. Replying to a question, he said that the provision of charging fee from the BPL category of people in lieu of providing information is illegal.