Maharashtra ‘vague’ about controversial RTI changes.

Daily Pioneer: Mumbai: Saturday, April 07, 2012.

Civil society activists in Maharashtra are keeping their fingers crossed on whether the Congress-led DF Government will withdraw the controversial amendment to the Maharashtra RTI Rules, 2005, which mandates that a request for information "shall relate to one subject matter” and “shall not ordinarily” exceed 150 words.

The activists, with whom Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Thursday evening had a meeting on various issues relating to the implementation of the RTI Act in Maharashtra, are also sceptical as to whether the State Government is serious about matters relating to the dissemination of information by the public authorities.

“We are not quite happy with the vague assurances that the Chief Minister gave us on the RTI-related issues at the meeting. He had no answer as to why the state government notified two amendments to the RTI rules in January this year without taking activists and public at large into confidence He was equally not forthcoming as to whether the state government would do away with the 15o word limit on RTI queries imposed in one of the amendments. All he said was he would consider our demand,” senior RTI activist Krishnaraj Rao told The Pioneer on Friday.

Rao said that though Chavan was not averse to public hearings on RTI-related issues, the CM did not commit to discussing the word cap issue.

“The Chief Minister did speak of public hearings. But, I am not sure he meant that he would have a re-look at the amendment relating to the 150 word cap,” another activist Anil Galgali said.