Times of India: Chennai: Saturday,
August 06, 2016.
Right to
Information (RTI) has impacted the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority
(CMDA) in a different way! The urban planning body has decided to digitise
documents that could also be shared for those seeking information under RTI. As
per existing norms, documents are destroyed after a specific period.
To start
with, approvals for planning permissions would be digitised, official sources
told TOI. According to them, documents are normally destroyed once in every 10
years and information sought for an early period could not furnished through
RTI. "So, digitizing documents comes in handy. If we have documents in
digital format, it will be easy to provide necessary data for people, who take
the RTI route to access information," a CMDA official said. The
digitisation issue figured in the recent authority meeting of CMDA, in which
emphasis was laid for kick starting the process, sources added.
CMDA deals
with all planning sanctions and completion certificates for constructions that
are more than stilt-plus-two-floors falling in the limits of Chennai
Metropolitan Area. In 2015, the authority provided more than 330 approvals for
special buildings, while the previous year of 2014 recorded issuance of
planning permission for a little over 290 special buildings.
"On the
one hand, it will benefit RTI applicants, while on the other, the move will be
an advantage for officials as we can preserve a soft copy of forever,"
another official said. Noting that the digitally maintained documents can be
used for future verifications, the official said, "Initially, we will
commence with scanning and storing the approved planning permissions digitally.
It may be followed by other documents like completion certificates."
Welcoming the
initiative, RTI activists say that the initiative could speed up the response
on RTI queries. Vinoth Ranganathan, one of the founders of onlinerti.com said,
they have witnessed visible change in delivery of replies with the Bangalore
Planning Authority (BDA), after the body had digitised all the documents.
"The response time for RTI applications filed with BDA has considerably
reduced, thanks to digitisation. Now, BDA replies for RTI queries in five to 10
days, which used to be anywhere between 35 and 40 days in the past."
According to
him, the RTI act stipulates that information that are more than 20 years old
before the date of request cannot made. "The 20 years cap was created
because it would be a tedious process for officials to search for details from
old records. However, such digitisation process will pave the way for
elimination of the clause, where public information officers may look for data
at the click of a button," he observed.