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State CIC lauds civic chief’s circular on RTI red tapism: Maharashtra’s Chief Information Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad has applauded a BMC circular issued by Civic Commissioner Ajoy Mehta, aimed at reducing red tape over the implementation of the Right to Information Act, and now wants the state government to issue the very same circular to all state departments.
The BMC circular talks of how citizens who seek information under the RT I Act are often summoned to inspect documents even when the information they seek is not voluminous, or when they have not asked for an inspection. The circular asks BMC officials not to do so. Instead, they have been instructed to send the information directly to applicants, they should count the number of pages asked for, and charge the applicant for the information per page.
When the information sought is voluminous and an RT I applicant is called for an inspection, the circular says, applicants should not merely be dumped with the information, but the documents should be indexed and the pages numbered so that it is easy for applicants to find the information they are looking for.
(Also see in the issue of August 2015: page 94, Inspection of Documents.)
Grant for online filing of RTI Applications:
States can get financial aid from the Centre to set up facilities for the online filing of applications under the Right to Information (RT I) Act and other initiatives aimed at simplification and promotion of the transparency law. Various Administrative Training Institutes (AT Is) working under the states can also get grant of a maximum of Rs.4 lakh for setting up a helpline in regional languages for answering queries of the general public under the RT I Act, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) announced on Thursday. “The facility of filing RTI applications and appeals online through the RT I online web portal has been launched and is being implemented in all the ministries or departments of the Government of India situated in New Delhi.
