The Hindu: New Delhi: Monday, July 10, 2017.
Right to
Information (RTI) applicants would be able to register their queries online on
the Delhi government’s new portal, which will be launched by Chief Minister
Arvind Kejriwal on Monday.
Over a year
after it was supposed to be launched, the Delhi government on Sunday announced
that its online RTI portal would finally start from Monday. The Aam Aadmi Party
government had started training public information officers (PIOs) across
departments in early 2016, with the portal expected to be launched last April.
In fact, the Administrative Reforms Department of the Delhi government had
started work on the project in 2014.
Payment
options
From Monday,
as per the Delhi government, the e-RTI portal would start accepting
applications for a total of 172 public authorities or government departments in
the Capital. The Central government had launched its own online RTI application
portal in 2013, which allowed users to file queries, pay application fee and
submit requests for appeal. The Central government had urged the States to set
up their own online application portals. Maharashtra had followed suit in 2015 with
its own RTI portal.
Delhi
Minister for Administrative Reforms Kailash Gahlot said the Delhi government’s
portal would allow users to file their requests, pay the fee via netbanking,
file the first appeal, pay for additional documents online and get email/SMS
alerts on the status of the applications. Users would be able to upload
supporting documents. The option to pay using debit cards would be added later,
said the Minister. The portal would be in both English and Hindi.
“The online
RTI portal would be an important tool for the common man to hold government
departments accountable,” Mr. Gahlot said. According to the Delhi government’s
RTI statistics which cover the police, municipal corporations and other
government departments in the Capital a total of 2.74 lakh RTI queries had been
filed till Sunday evening. Of these, 2.70 lakh applications have been disposed
of.
‘Positive
step’
Delhi-based
RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal said the State government’s portal would
be a “positive step” towards transparency. “In my experience with the Central
government’s online portal, I have seen that it is user-friendly for all
concerned users as well as those handling the queries,” said Mr. Agrawal.
Under the RTI
Act, Ministries or departments have to file quarterly returns with the Central
Information Commission. Mr. Agrawal said the online system makes this an
automatic process, where the PIOs don’t have to manually file the returns.