The modern thinking Indian

We are typically more sympathetic to the concerns and feelings of differently abled people (or who used to be called as handicapped people), and one expects that Government departments, who act as enablers for providing support and services to the citizenry of this country, would also act the same way for differently abled citizens. However, it is no surprise that Government departments are as unconcerned to these special citizens as they are towards normal citizens. But now, citizens have a weapon to get what they want, and that is using the power of RTI. The RTI Act enables citizens to get information on many aspects of the workings of the Government, and this includes the status of any item pending with the Government, and so it was in this particular case when the citizen used RTI to get the required action (link to article):

For almost a year, Rudrakshi Pandya, a differently-abled was pushed around when she demanded her right to a family pension after her father, a retired headmaster of a city-based school, died few years ago. Rudrakshi, was entitled by the government for a pension, under Gujarat civil services (pension) rules as she was unable to fend for herself. Interestingly, pension department had all the requisite documents, including Rudrakshi's medical certificate and even the clearance from the district education office.
It was here that Rudrakshi's mentor, Falguni Mehta, filed an RTI application under Section 7(1) of the RTI Act, which pertains to information being provided within 48 hours of the application with the pensions department. Mehta wanted to know reasons why Rudrakshi's pension was delayed, officers responsible for the delay, the grounds on which pensions for the differently-abled were rejected since 1980 and what punitive actions would be taken if the officers were found guilty. The case finally came up for hearing before state information commission. State chief information commissioner RN Das ruled in Rudrakshi's favour and directed pensions department to provide information within 48 hours.

One wishes that cases like not come up, since they show the bureaucracy in pretty bad light; however, this is also another depiction of the power of the RTI Act in getting the concerned Government departments to act. Also, recent punishments against officials for denying or delaying information should also act as a warning to Government officials in this regard.

Labels: Benefits, Governance, India, Information, Law, Policy, RTI

The RTI Act has had a major effect on the availability of information, it turned around the concept that information was something that would not be easily available and could be used by the bureaucracy as a way of wielding power. Under the RTI Act, any citizen could ask for information, and they would need to be provided this information (except for a exclusions dealing with security, commercial secrets, and some privacy issues - of course, there is an ongoing dispute where both the President and the courts believe that RTI is not something that applies to their actions and are still pushing back). The process was as simple as filling a form, depositing a fee of Rs. 10, and filing this with the required department.
However, as with any Act, there are ways to make the process more complicated, and this is especially true in the case of Indian citizens living abroad. The actual process of payment of the Rs. 10 fee was always a big problem, with no clear definition of whom to make the actual payment to. So, even though the process was such that one could file the fee in the local currency, there were different rules for different states - as an example, in Uttar Pradesh, the process was to apply and paste treasury stamp for getting copy of State Information Commission's order. Now the nodal agency for RTI, the Central Information Commission has proposed modifying the rules to make it easier for NRI's to use the RTI Act (link to article):

In order to ease RTI application process from abroad, the Central Information Commission has framed new rules enabling NRIs to pay application fees and information costs at the Indian embassies and missions abroad. NRIs will also be able to avail audio-video conference facilities in case of first and second appeals. There will be an easy-to-follow procedure for paying fee against the information in Indian Embassies and audio-video conferencing facility in case of first and second appeals," Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah said.
As per the new procedure envisaged, Habibullah said "Embassies may accept only the fee and information cost and provide e-receipts to applicants who can then directly file their RTIs to public authorities in India by email along with proof of payment."
The CIC said, "I will soon meet concerned officials at the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Personnel and Training other stake holders for this."

If these rules are properly implemented, it will make it much easier for NRI's to be able to use the RTI Act without too much effort; currently the effort involved, especially when dealing with local state governments and courts in non-metros makes it much more difficult to properly utilize the power provided by the RTI Act.

Labels: CIC, Citizen, Information, Law, NRI, RTI

RTI, for all its slowness, and huge backlog, is still proving to be beneficial to common citizens. I had mentioned in a previous post, a phrase that I like to use to for the effects of an RTI application - a lightning torch that exposes sloth and shines the beacon of openness on the red tape present in our Government. This feeling gets reinforced when you read about cases such as this one where a rape victim was running from pillar to post to get her case filed and investigated, and the police was not exactly the picture of cooperation:

Now, Right to Information (RTI) Act has brought justice to a rape victim in Umarpada taluka in south Gujarat. Following a notice by Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) in May, an FIR was finally lodged and action taken against the accused. In its notice, GIC slapped a penalty of Rs 25,000 jointly on two police officers for violating provisions of the Act. This followed an RTI application filed by a 15-year-old rape victim demanding to know why action had not been taken on her complaint.
The girl was raped in February last year but the accused was roaming free and police was refusing to register an FIR. GIC has penalised police sub-inspector and public information officer (PIO) DN Patel and assistant police sub-inspector Chandubhai Chaudhary, the deemed assistant public information officer (APIO) of Mangrol police station in Surat district, Rs 12,500 each.

RTI, in this legal form is a very effective tool. It allows citizens to get information about matters that concern them either personally or affects society, and enables this information not to be hidden unless it can be proved that the information being sought is either for commercial purposes, or affects national security.
There is an ongoing debate about whether the Central Information Commission (CIC), the nodal body appointed to hear RTI cases is actually not working as well as it should; on the other hand, there are numerous cases where RTI ensures that people get beneficial effects. In addition, RTI cells and mobile units that seek to empower people by making them aware of their rights are also on the job.
The writer of this piece still believes that to get rid of corruption, all other instruments that have been tried, whether they be strict laws, exposure, penalties for people caught, etc, all have failed to work; the RTI Act however, by its very nature is meant to get information. This availability of information to the common man is a welcome first step to reduce corruption and inaction in our society.

Labels: Law, Police, Punishment, RTI, Women

I normally celebrate every use of RTI, and write about it as much as I can; in the hope that all these articles can make a difference and encourage more people to use this tool to get the information that they desire rather than wait behind the dark wall of babudom. Waiting to get information before the world of RTI was a very very slow and painful process; the successes that I have seen and read about with the use of RTI makes it a very powerful and fairly successful tool (what this means is that if you have seen individual benefits of RTI, please write about it).
One of the essential parts of the RTI Act is about penalizing delays or refusal to provide information. The fines may not seem very significant, but they aren't negligible either (going upto a maximum of Rs. 25,000 per case). Consider the following case where a fine was employed:

NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission (CIC) has slapped a penalty of Rs 25,000 on the School of Planning and Architecture's public information officer for inaction on a Right to Information appeal for over three months.
In his order, information commissioner O P Kejriwal has directed the PIO, D R Bains, to pay Rs 25,000 for causing a delay of "more than 100 days in providing the required information to the appellant". The appellant had asked for information relating to the action taken against his daughter who was not permitted to sit for an exam due to shortage of attendance.

If you however read the article in more detail, you will still see that there are delays; it needs to be ensured that the enforcing of the penalty clause of the RTI Act should not go the way of normal cases in the judicial system that suffer inordinate delays. Only the prospect of a swift penalty will cause more compliance with the law.

Labels: Governance, Information, Law, Penalty, Punishment, Responsibility, RTI

The RTI Act was supposed to provide an inexpensive way for people to get more empowered, and to be able to exercise their right to get more openness into the Government machinery. This would be a sword in the fight to expose corruption and mis-governance; and the RTI Act has brought about some changes in this regard. There have been many cases where people have used RTI to either get more information about cases where they have fighting with babudom; or there have been cases where people (and many organizations fighting for more openness) have used the power of the RTI Act to expose corruption or other such problems that used to remain hidden earlier.
However, this is not to say that the Government bureaucracy is not fighting back. There have been all sorts of attempts made to stone-wall queries, or to question as to why people need the information that they have requested. In some cases, these attempts to prevent disclosure of such information has lead to fines on the concerned officials. However, the method used below was something that I had not read of earlier, and seems to use normal Government channels to punish a Government employee trying to expose corruption:

DEWAS (MP): Information comes at a price, and who can know this better than a Kendriya Vidyalaya teacher who has been transferred to Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir for seeking information about alleged corruption.
"I was transferred to Kargil and was also relieved by the school administration here the day they received an order in this regard as I have exposed corruption in purchase of books, construction of playground and illegal felling of trees among others and sought information about it under RTI," Manjulal Kajodia said after beginning his protest against his transfer.

Such measures to victimise an RTI applicant need to be condemned across the board. Exposing corruption within your own department is even more risky since you can get targeted more easily (there are specific whistle-blower laws that try to protect people exposing wrong-doing within their own area).

Labels: Corruption, Governance, Punishment, RTI

Slowly, one can see a greater use of the RTI Act. The RTI Act had been pushed for long as the means to allow citizens to get openness from the bureaucracy (seen for long as a place where things were slow, and where citizens would always have to suffer). The RTI Act was meant to let citizens get information on just about any query under the sun (subject some state secrets, and some commercial secrets). It has been going through fits and starts, with many bemoaning the fact that the babudom is trying their best to thwart the implementation of the law; but as the below examples show, the Act is actually doing good in many cases. People are able to request information, and if the concerned official does not provide the information, then there are provisions of fines being levies for this non-compliance:

PATNA: State information commissioner Mohd Shakeel Ahmad, has imposed a fine of Rs 250 per day with a maximum of Rs 25,000 each against deputy collector, land reforms, Rajgir, and the circle officer of Rajgir for not providing information to an applicant, Sanjay Kumar, seeking information under the provision of Right to Information Act.

Now the fine itself may not seem like much, but the provision is that the fine is levied from the salary of the official, and also such fines are typically highlighted in the media, putting pressure on the officers to comply with the orders. Further, it is the provision of such fines that would encourage citizens to query for all the information that they want to obtain, safe in the assumption that either they will get the information, or the officer will be fined for not providing the information.

Labels: Citizen, Empowerment, Information, Law, Policy, RTI

Ever since the RTI Act came into existence, it has been seen as a powerful instrument to clear out secrecy of movements of records within the bureaucracy, and of helping to explain as to what decisions are made on what basis. It could be seen as a powerful laser-strength light shines like a powerful sun on the cobwebs of the Government bureaucracy and exposes corruption; however, one of the main problems seen is the inability of normal street level people to make sure of it. This has been seen as one of the main problems of the Act, it is only as good as the ability of people to use it.
Well, it seems like people are slowly catching on, and this awareness, even if more pronounced in urban areas, will slowly move through the whole country. Even a slight increase in awareness and a reduction in corruption and stealth of Government operations will do wonders for the enhancement of citizens. Imagine the power of a villager being able to find out where the money alloted for improving a road went to ? In many cases, just the act of filing a RTI petition can cause the concerned officials to move much faster. Consider these examples of how the RTI Act seems to be catching on:

Armed with the Right to Information (RTI) Act, citizens are posing peculiar questions to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) at an average of 10 applications per day. The questions range from appointments, service matters, building penalisation scheme etc. It's not the city folk but people from districts and even other states are demanding information.
Consider this. P Anand, a resident of Ashok Nagar in the city sought information on last November's appointment of additional commissioner (heritage) J Kedareshwari. This included whether she was posted in GHMC through an open advertisement and why her appointment was done in haste and the qualifications and eligibility for the post.

It is really heartening to see this movement catching up on; if this continues and becomes a mass movement, then we will finally see levels of corruption coming down and the influence of vested interests will start coming down.

Labels: Community, Corruption, Empowerment, Governance, Image, Law, Policy, Reform, RTI, Welfare

It is an established fact that a significant majority of money devoted to social programmes, such as the National Employment Guarantee, Anti-poverty programmes, targeted food subsidy, and many others, are heavily flawed in terms of the actual money that reach the poor. There have studies over the past, there have been admissions by the Government in the past (such as Rajiv Gandhi's famous statement made way back in 1985 about only 15% of the money reaching the intended). Money is siphoned off through middle-men, local politicians, workers, and the entrenched mafia. This has happened for a long time now, and it would seem that people have accepted this as a normal thing.
However, this should not be so. From time to time, the Government announces (mostly falsely) that there will be much greater inspection of the implementation to ensure that leakages are stopped. But more than the Government, there are social activists who are encouraging villages and the logical recipients of such aid to be more vigilant, to use laws such as RTI, and other measures such as social audits. Going against entrenched measures will lead to backlashes from those who stand to lose out their ill-gotten gains. Such is to be expected. However, it is the duty of the state to protect such audits and awareness, to provide all security measures, from policy statements by ministers at all levels and messaging through the arms of the state (babus, local politicians), and act strictly and firmly against people who seek to subvert such acts. But consider this article, and see whether the Government is doing things in the right manner:

The thousand-strong gathering at the Theological College grounds in Ranchi on June 10 had no doubts over why Lalit Mehta was killed. The 36-year-old engineer turned activist, had no personal enemies or battles. All he had done was access National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) expenditure records for researchers verifying official records against field data. On May 14, a day before the planned Social Audit of those works, he was brutally murdered.
The NREGA has provided an entitlement for the first time. The RTI has given a tool to uncover corrupt practices. The Social Audit is a mandatory process, under the NREGA Act, giving the people a chance to establish the truth and push for change. For the first time a corrupt mafia is threatened by a legally mandated process, which looks at details and places irrefutable documentary proof in the public domain. The corrupt nexus is reacting with pre-meditated, calculated violence.

If you read the article by Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, this will leave you shaking in disbelief. There are incidents where the local administration (influenced no doubt by vested interests), is acting against people who are trying to create the awareness, and the Government, with all its statements for the 'aam admi', is standing still and refusing to take the measures that are subverting its own political campaigns. In the end, when people see corruption and do not see measures reaching them, they blame the political party. Does it not surprise the Congress that all these measures are not getting them political votes ?

Labels: Community, Corruption, Development, Education, Empowerment, Governance, India, Investigation, Law, Police, Policy, Politics, Reform, Review, RTI

The issue of the separation of powers is becoming a more tricky issue in the Indian context. Earlier, there was a greater separation of powers of the executive, legislature, and the judiciary. It could be argued that the judiciary would keep to its limit earlier and is now encroaching on the powers of the other 2 now, but the fact that most people would admit to is that earlier, instances of corruption and malpractices were far less prevalent in the executive and legislatures, and have become more widespread now.
Whether it be in terms of policy decisions and contracts in the case of the Government/executive, or in the cases of Governments falling / wrong speaker or Governor decisions, the judiciary is being invoked by more people now, and the judiciary is not afraid to step in where it feels that the step taken by the other 2 bodies are wrong in law. This however provokes the other 2 bodies who feel that their powers are supreme in their own areas and even the court system cannot question them.
So what happens in the case of a powerful law such as the RTI Act that mandates that only essential items such as treaties, security matters and trade secrets will remain inviolable, and for everything else, the common citizen is entitled to know details if the citizen asks for it. However, such a openness seems to run foul of both the legislatures and the judiciary which believe that such laws don't apply to them. Read this article for more details:

Amid a raging national debate over the Right to Information Act, the UP assembly has triggered a new controversy by seeking to initiate contempt of the House proceedings against the State Information Commission (SIC) and petitioners who sought information.
The assembly has crossed swords with the commission for the issuance of its notices to furnish information sought by a couple of petitioners under the RTI Act. While one petitioner, Romesh Tiwari, had sought to know — (a) Whether an MLA could bid for a contract? (b) What are the provisions for this? and (c) Whether an MLA becomes liable to lose his or her membership on the basis of the profit earned through the contract? Another petitioner, Motilal had sought information about the proceedings of the Petition Committee of the 13th assembly.

These are seemingly not information that are in any nature secret or can affect state security, but what seems to have got the goat of the UP speaker is the summons issued by the State Information Commission. The House considers its actions inside the legislature body as supreme and nobody has the right to question them until the Speaker allows it, something that will prevent the RTI Act from being implemented in these areas. It is either for the central Parliament or for courts to take this issue further and set the applicable policy.

Labels: Court, Information, Law, Parliament, Politics, Reform, RTI

India's RTI Act is supposed to be a way for all citizens to get information about records in the Government; it has been moderately successful, sometimes leading to great results, just by filing a simple form. However, it is dependent on Government departments maintaining records in a way that they can simply get access to such information when requested, and being in the spirit of RTI in providing such information. Towards this end, the CIC (Chief information Commissioner) has always pushed Government Departments to take further steps in this regard, including taking the action of penalizing the concerned officials when they are seen to be not acting on RTI requests.
However, as of now it seems that the emperor has no clothes. It seems a basic assumption that the RTI would be having a record of how many cases are currently open, how many have been closed successfully, and so on. Such records are fairly easy to do in the current age of computing, and are necessary if the performance of RTI Act needs to be evaluated. However, the CIC admitted that such records are not being maintained:

The Central Information Commission has been caught on the wrong foot after an RTI activist exposed how the commission — known for ticking off public authorities which fail to maintain records, leading to lack of transparency — is itself unable to furnish to the public information as basic as the number and status of cases and appeals pending with it. The reason: it maintains no such record.
"The CIC’s registry will take immediate steps to computerize and maintain a record of appeals/complaints admitted, date of hearing of each appeal, decision in each case with the state of announcement," the chief information commissioner decreed while deciding an RTI plea filed by Shruti Singh Chauhan.

It is good that the CIC has ordered keeping of such records. Like the RTI activist in this case, there are many others who will start to mine these records and find out how many Government departments are responsive, and how many are not. And using the media to apply pressure on unresponsive departments would be the next step. The RTI Act is a great first step in opening of information access, and it needs to be exploited to the maximum.

Labels: Empowerment, Law, Reform, RTI

There have been numerous instances now of people using the RTI Act to inquire about things of public interest, including cases of dereliction of duty, corruption in construction, the state of public spending under various development heads, and so on. For people used to a cold and secretive bureaucracy, the spotlight it shines on officials is an incredible asset, and can do wonders. The RTI Act has also been used by people to find out about the status of their files, and the very act of asking for this information normally leads to the file moving at a speed that the babus are unused to. But this particular application is one that I have not read about before:

Right To Information (RTI) query has exposed how a senior police inspector (now retired) allegedly favoured one businessman to settle scores with another in a civil dispute case.
Trader Jasmine Shah, arrested in a cheating case three years ago, has used RTI to prove that he was illegally arrested by then D N Nagar police station senior inspector M A Shaikh. The information Shah has obtained states that the departmental inquiry, conducted by then deputy commissioner of police (zone IX) Amitabh Gupta, found Shaikh guilty and resulted in disciplinary action against the officer for arresting Shah. Albeit, the department did not initiate any punitive measures against Shaikh as he had retired two years ago.

The acts of our police department, sans most means of accountability to the general public whom they serve, do not normally lead people to write about them in praise. But it is cases like these which lead to a clamour for reform, so that policemen cannot misuse their powers, and act with a bias. Given that the way that our police force has evolved, as a instrument used to control the Indian public during the British rule, it is no wonder that the police has an institutional trend towards behaving as they wish.
It is only when more people get enthused by this success that the use of the RTI Act will become more wide-spread. If we are to bring in more accountability and reduce corruption in our system, the RTI Act will be a major weapon in that.

Labels: Corruption, Governance, Law, Police, Reform, Responsibility, RTI

The RTI Act has typically been used to bring about information mainly about the status of one's own files that are being processed slowly by the bureaucracy, or to root out some matters of public interest, typically in cases where some sort of corruption is involved. But as more and more cases come about, it is clear that RTI can make information freely available to people, and information is power. In this particular case, it has allowed a non-Government official to ask details about the record of a official who was promoted, once revealed, the information was such that the promotion was withdrawn.

Ashwin Patel, who is a drug manufacturer himself, had asked whether the promotion of assistant depot manager of the Central Medical Stores Organisation (CMSO) RS Shah can be considered legal or not. Shah was chargesheeted by his own department and a vigilance inquiry too was pending against him. At the end of the exercise, Shah's promotion was withdrawn on Friday.
Patel procured under the RTI Act two letters—- one written by the under secretary dated October 30, 2001 and the other written by a vigilance officer on October 11, 2001, categorically informing the department that it had been decided to initiate departmental enquiry against him. So perturbed were the health department officials that they never allowed Patel to even inspect the files pertaining to Shah's vigilance inquiry under the RTI Act. On Friday, Shah's promotion was nullified.

Do read the link above, it shows the Government officials have used the garb of secrecy to stall enquiries and promote one of their own. But, once you have people willing to challenge this (after all, the Government is setup for the service of the citizenry and is paid out of the tax-payer's taxes), more and more of such cases will be rooted. In the end, if corruption in India decreases and more efficiency and honesty gets promoted, the RTI Act will be one of the leading reasons for such a thing happening.

Labels: Corruption, Empowerment, Governance, Law, Morality, Responsibility, RTI

For some time now, people and organizations working to promote the use of RTI as an instrument to bring the babudom in check have been advocating the use of RTI by people in a more wide spread way. Frequent use of RTI for ferreting out information, along with penalizing officials for failure to carry out their duties is the only way to sensitize the bureaucracy towards their responsibilities.
The best way to do is to keep on bringing out success stories of the use of RTI, thus making sure that more and more people feel that they can also use this act if they are struck with something in government and they are getting the run-around or not getting satisfactory movement.
The below example is a fabulous example. It is the story of a nurse who was getting the runaround for getting her leave encashment settled for over an year; first RTI helped in getting her dues cleared, and a secondary RTI petition helped in identifying the babus involved in the delay and getting them penalized for the delay.

Vijaya S Mulay, a retired municipal nurse, filed a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act which sought to track the movement (or non-movement) of papers pertaining to her retirement dues. The papers had been pending with the administrative department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for more than a year.
The RTI response revealed the names of the officials who 'sat' on the file for months together. The format also gave a detailed reply which showed where the papers got stuck and for how many days. Following her RTI query, the civic authorities were forced to take action against the errant officials and penalise two BMC employees for the delay.

I ask people to read the story that is linked. It describes how this tenacious nurse, frustrated over the delay in her application, used RTI most effectively. And she was not satisfied only with getting her dues, but wanted to catch the babus who sit on such requests, not caring about this affects the people.
The amount that they were not penalized was not much, but the fact that a censure was made and their names highlighted in the newspaper is a public punishment. It is a reminder that people in government, no matter what their position, are meant to help the common man, the citizen of the country.

Labels: Empowerment, Governance, India, Law, Reform, Responsibility, RTI

The RTI Act has several warts, it faces a lot of pressure from the bureaucracy which is being forced to take action, it is dependent to a large extent on the diktats of the information commissioners; but it is causing a number of long pending cases to be heard and resolved. And the prime reason, the main advantage of the RTI Act being that it gives people the right to take a peek inside Government file movement and decision making. The RTI Act remains one of the key laws passed in the recent past by parliament, and as it sinks more deeper into society, people will use it far more.
In this particular case, a widow whose husband was employed with the Government was entitled to receive Rs. 53,000 under a group insurance scheme after his death. For 12 years (12 years is a very large period of time in such circumstances), she was battling with the Gujarat state revenue department to get this money. There were some procedural issues with the premium that her husband had to pay, but she was not aware of these details. Finally, she filed a case under the RTI Act, and the Gujarat Information Commission asked the revenue department to file a reply. Based on this reply, the widow had to pay some amount against unpaid premium, and then she was allotted the insurance proceeds.
Besides the obvious issue of an uncaring department, the bureaucracy is normally unresponsive because the details of file movement are not disclosed to the applicant. However, the RTI Act entitles the applicant to know about current status of the file / application, and when the concerned babu is brought under the laser spotlight of the RTI application, things move.
All of us know this, that the bureaucracy is a picture of sloth, with things normally moving at a slow pace. Until there are some systemic reforms, the RTI Act presents a very good way (much better than other ways) of getting information (as a right) and then being able to get action taken based on this information.
There are a number of movements geared towards getting people aware of their rights under the RTI Act. Some of these are:
1. NCPRI
2. NDTV
3. India Together
4. RTI (Govt)
The true powers of this Act are only possible when people use this right to information whenever they feel stone-walled or when they need information for a public cause (like amount of money allocated and spent in their sorroundings).

Labels: Corruption, Empowerment, Governance, India, Law, Reform, Responsibility, RTI

One of the biggest thunderbolts to hit organized corruption in India is the RTI act. This is an act, that has the potential to bring about an immense amount of exposure to the wheeling and dealing of Government in India, whether at the central level, state level or at the decentralized level. This exposure scares the daylight out of the decision makers; what mostly results is that if there is a guilty party in the decision making process, they will reverse the decision due to a fear of getting exposed and end up doing the right thing.
What is RTI ? Right to Information. The RTI Act states that except for some exempt areas, any citizen can file an application to obtain information about any aspect of the Government through an inexpensive process. Towards this purpose, the information will have to be given to the person making the query, and if not, penalties can be applied. There are a number of incidents where people have used this act to bring benefits to their community. Attached are excerpts from a story that bring about the true power of the Act, and the extent of changes that it can bring out if applied with determination and some amount of perseverance.
Read this article in the Indian Express:

In the six decades after Independence, nothing actually worked in the Naraini block of Banda in UP's Bundelkhand region. The villagers periodically protested against lack of civic amenities, bad roads and sub-human living conditions but no one listened. Until they discovered the Right to Information Act. On July 1, the villages filed applications under the RTI Act to the district collectorate, Banda and to the office of the commissioner, Chitrakoot division. They sought to know the outcome of the Banda DM's visit to their block on March 2 last year; what the DM's orders were after the visit; and details of how the funds meant for their villages were spent.
Within a month, they got what they wanted, and more. Work on a 7.8 km approach road and a bridge began in September, now electrification of the villages is underway.

This Act is a revolutionary Act (weaknesses and all) which gives ordinary people the ability to get an insight into the closed world of official decision making. Before the Act, this was a closed world. Government officials would invoke the authority of the Government to declare any matter as secret, and use this secrecy to cloak an immense amount of wrong decision making.
After all, when a Prime Minister with enough of a majority to be almost an elected dictator claims that only 15% of allocated money reaches the poor, one can only imagine the scale and magnitude of funds diversion (Rajiv Gandhi made this famous statement when he had more than 400 MP's). And how many of us are there who would not like to know when a decision will finally come on some matter, as well as some details of how the decision is made (especially when it does not seem to make sense).
The RTI Act was brought in under some pressure from reformers, people who knew what the potential of such an Act was. In the pre-RTI state of the Government, measures taken to prevent corruption were not very effective. Sure, there were arrests, cases against high and powerful people. But, there was never this spotlight on the process of decision making. As the examples of what this Act can do start building up, more and more people will start using this Act to get answers, something that a Government employee would love to have refused to do in the past. Take a look at 2 private sites pushing usage of the Act. (http://www.ndtv.com/rti/default.asp, http://www.sakshitrust.org/)
There are many weaknesses in the current implementation; it is argued that the RTI Central Information Commission is lenient on Government officers, many Govt. offices put hurdles in the way of the information seeker by trying to entangle the process in red tape, and so on. It is also argues that the Act is misused by people to seek personal gain. However, this Act has already made people more aware of their rights, and as the courts start ruling on some of the issues under the Act, one can expect more clarification of the process. In fact, when the Government realized the powerful nature of the Act after some examples of the usage, there was a proposal to water down the provisions of the Act, but in the face of sustained pressure, the Government had to back down.
This was a major victory, but the real victory will come when it percolates down to every department/official that their actions can be pulled out and reviewed. That is when we will be truly on the path to a more honest nation.

Labels: Governance, India, Law, Reform, RTI