Indian Express: Pune: Friday, April
14, 2017.
The
department of personnel and training (DoPT) has called for suggestions and
objections on its website for a series of changes in the rules of the RTI Act.
Closure of
pending cases after the death of the applicant, increase in the fee to access
photocopies of documents and fixing the word limit of applications to 500 words
are some of the proposed changes, which the DoPT says are to make the RTI Act
‘more efficient’.
Opposing the
proposed moves, Hazare in his letter said these changes would burden the RTI
applicants instead of making the Act stronger.
“The proposal
to close RTI cases after the death of the user is particularly dangerous. With
cases of attacks on RTI activists on the rise, this can lead to many other
attacks,” Hazare said.
He added that
the word limit would adversely affect the rural masses and the barely-literate,
who would then find it difficult to file applications. Criticising the proposed
fee hike, the activist said this would limit the financially weak section’s
access to information.
In his
letter, Hazare also pointed out the various agitations the country had seen for
the promulgation of the RTI Act, and said any move to weaken the Act would face
stiff opposition. The central government had in 2006, Hazare said, tried to
change the Act, but dropped its plans in face of strong citizen protest. “If
the government goes ahead with its plan, I will hit the streets to agitate
against it,” the letter said.
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