The Times of India: Hyderabad: Wednesday,
February 15, 2017.
Days after
RTI applicant S Khalid Ahmed sought details of an old sale deed in Persian from
the state archives department, he was denied the information citing absence of
Persian translators.
Not just
Ahmed, but dozens of such queries under the RTI Act by historians and others
are going unanswered as experts are not available to decipher old Persian and
translate it into English.
Another RTI
applicant, Abid Rasool Khan, a resident of Mehdipatnam, asked the department to
provide him a copy of the GO published during a Nizam's government gazette in
1896.
Officials
said they had 2.32 lakh gazettes in the department and they neither had enough
staff to scour through the records nor translators.
They also do
not have experts to translate records from Urdu and Old Telugu (chain-link)
into English. "We are receiving an average 40 applications every month
under RTI Act. But we are disposing off applications after searching the
documents and records," public information officer and deputy director,
archives department, V Ranga Raj told TOI.
Most RTI
applicants seek in formation on old cartography (maps) dating back to 1890s and
1930s. Most sought-after documents are in Persian, Urdu and English too.
"As no translators are available with the department, we are giving chance
to applicants to bring translators and translate the records. In exchange, we
will collect a nominal fee," he added.
"On the
other hand, other de partments are also forwarding RTI applications to archives
department hoping that the records might be available with us," he said.
"We have requested the united Andhra Pradesh government and now the
Telangana government to appoint translators and adequate staff, but our
requests have fallen on deaf ears," said a senior archives department
official.
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