Moneylife: Pune: Thursday,
May 30, 2013.
Besides
Indians who reside abroad, now Indians can file Right to Information (RTI)
application online through the government’s web portal www.rtionline.gov.in to
five public authorities: Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT); Ministry
of Home Affairs (MHA); Department of Agriculture and Cooperation; Department of
Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries; Department of Consumer Affairs and;
Department of Food and Public Distribution.
Pune-based
MIT’s School of government, a post-graduate course on politics and governance
for potential politicians, where I teach RTI, decided to conduct a practical
lesson on filing online application. The DoPT had on 23rd May opened online
filing of RTI application for citizens to the above mentioned five departments/
ministries.
The students
decided to file RTI online to the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation. As
a test application, they decided to request information on the quantity of food
grains that went rotten in its various warehouses across the country. The
period for which information was sought was 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2012.
We followed
the step by step instructions as is mentioned on the portal. After successfully
filing the RTI application, twice the transaction of Rs10 via the State Bank of
India (SBI) card of one of the students, failed. Students did not give up and
much to their delight, the third time, the transaction was successful. The
proof came in seconds later through an SMS from SBI which stated: “Transaction
of Rs10 made in SBI Credit Card xx7902 at RTI Online on 23 May 13.’
However,
seconds later, it was a disappointment, when despite the Rs10 having been
successfully debited from the student’s SBI Card, this message flashed on the
portal: “Sorry due to transaction cancellation/ failure your RTI request could
not be filed. Please try again.’’ If the web portal had accepted the
application, the students would have received a registration number by SMS and
through this number, they could have tracked the status of their RTI
application.
I contacted
Commodore Lokesh Batra, a leading RTI activist from Delhi who relentlessly
fought with the government for facilitating online RTI applications for
overseas Indians as well as those in the country. Batra states, “…the DoPT has
just yesterday (22nd May) launched the online RTI for five public authorities
including Department of Agriculture and Co-operation and you have tried it
today. Perhaps they would take some time for synchronisation. I think you
should try again after a week or so. Otherwise, hundreds of citizens have been
filing RTI online and they have met with success.’’
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