The Hindu: Bengaluru: Friday, November 27, 2015.
What was
supposed to be a powerful tool to give information to the public about
government departments has become another bureaucratic headache for citizens.
Ten years
after the RTI Act was introduced, the State is staring at a backlog of close to
30,000 cases. The Karnataka Information Commission is considering
first-of-its-kind RTI adalats to clear the backlog. The 30,000 cases are just
the ones that came before the commission after having been through the two-step
appeal process where they were heard by the information officer and an
appellate authority.
If the larger
picture is considered, there are a lot more cases in limbo across several
government departments, experts say. “Generally, it takes anywhere between 8
and 9 months for an RTI request to reach the commission. We want to clear all
urgent BBMP related RTI requests in next month’s adalat,” said State
Information Commissioner (RTI) L. Krishnamurthy.