Times of India: Ludhiana: Friday,
October 21, 2016.
The sewa
kendras set up by Punjab government in rural and urban areas are seeking an
extra fee of Rs 200 for an RTI application as "facilitation charges".
The charge is
being levied across the state at all sewa kendras even as the Right To
Information (RTI) Act has prescribed a fee of Rs 10 for filing an application.
The boards displayed outside sewa kendras, or service centres, mention the fee
for various services. According to RTI activists, even though the facilitation
fee is not illegal as it was cleared by the state government, the amount is too
high. The fee for an RTI application is Rs 10, while the facilitation charges
mentioned on the dispolay boards is Rs 200.
RTI activists
protested outside a sewa kendra in Garhshankar town of Hoshiarpur on Wednesday
, alleging that this was an attempt to discourage the use of RTI Act. "It
is clearly against the spirit of the RTI Act, which prescribed a reasonable fee
for procuring information.However, levying Rs 200 as facilitation charges will
make its use prohibitive," said RTI activist Jai Gopal Dhiman, who covered
his face with a black cloth to register his protest.
"When
RTI Act clearly prescribes a fee, it is illegal to levy any additional costs
and that too 20 times the original fee. Clearly, the intention is to discourage
people from filing RTI applications," he said."There are several
other services where facilitation charges are less," he said. It is learnt
that infrastructure of the sewa kendras has been raised by the government and
staff would be paid by a private company which has also arranged computers,
printers and token machines. Official sources revealed that facilitation
charges would be levied by the private company .
Incidentally
, establish ment of 2,147 sewa kendras in Punjab, out of which 1,758 are in
rural areas, are being high lighted as a major step by the state government
towards ensuring governance reforms in the state. "These centres would act
as a catalyst to help people in getting their routine administrative works done
in a speedy manner," chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had said while
inaugurating the first such sewa kendra in Jalandhar on August 12.
"When
most sewa kendras are in villages, RTI Act would be very expensive for rural
folks," Dhiman said.State e-governance secretary Rakesh Verma said he
would check the issue with the director, governance reforms department.
`Underprivileged
sections will be hit'
Institute for
Development and Communication (IDC) director Pramod Kumar, who had chaired the
Punjab Governance Reforms Commission (PGRC) for ushering in governance and
administrative reforms in the state, said the facilitation charges for the RTI
applications sought by sewa kendras were on the higher side. "Higher
facilitation charges will adversely affect the underprivileged sections seeking
information through the RTI route in Punjab," he said.