Law minister S Suresh Kumar said that a meeting will be conducted soon to ensure speedy delivery of information sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. This will be along the same lines as the Sakal (The Citizens’ Charter Bill).
Law minister S Suresh Kumar on Friday said that a meeting will be conducted soon to ensure speedy delivery of information sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. This will be along the same lines as the Sakal (The Citizens’ Charter Bill).
The minister stated that the government wants to cut down on the time taken to furnish information sought by the citizens under the RTI.
“Right to Information (RTI) will be brought under the purview of Sakal by mid-May. At present, it takes 30 days to 90 days to furnish information. A seminar will be organised in this regard to chalk out plans and look into the technicalities of the process,” he added.
Once the process is streamlined, RTI would come under the purview of Sakal and the information will be given to in a span of one week or a fortnight. When asked about Vidhana Soudha Secretariat not furnishing information regarding MLA trips and expenditures, he assured that nothing is classified and steps would be taken to furnish all information.
Good response
Sakal received a good response and after the completion of a month. The minister said that a month after the implementation of Sakal in the state, the rate of disposal of applications relating to services was 98.59%. “Of 10 lakh applications received, 8.50 lakh applications were disposed of,” said Kumar.
With regard to Sakal, the best performing district is Chitradurga followed by Uttara Kannada and Davanagere. The districts showing worst performance are Gulbarga and Bangalore Rural.
The parameters for selecting the best district include early clearance of applications and disposal percentage. The departments that people sought for service updates were revenue department, which was followed by commercial and transports departments. The least number of applications were filed for education department.
B’lore lags behind
When it comes to availing Sakal services, Kumar said that Bangaloreans are lagging behind. “Applications regarding birth and death certificates are not being filed by the people. According to hospital records, we should have gotten applications for 600 birth certificates and 150 to 200 death certificates. People have not bothered to take the certificates,” he said.
It was also noted that applications for obtaining sanction plans for buildings above 2,400 sq ft are less compared to the existing number of buildings. “If there are enough computers and manpower for Sakal services in the BBMP, people would come forward to use the services,” he said.
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