Right to Information?? Is it really helping uphold democracy, when the applicaths are thrashed up by police officers...
NEW DELHI: A 'slow and tardy' implementation of the Right to Information Act in various states has deprived a large number of people from getting information, hampering the whole purpose of the Act, a new survey has claimed.
Only 45 per cent applicants got the required information under the Act from the Public Information Officers (PIOs) in Bihar and Jharkhand, according to the survey titled 'Accessing Information under RTI: Citizens' Experience in 10 States-2008.
The survey was conducted by an NGO on a mix of rural and urban population in Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Rajasthan.
In Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, about 90 per cent and 84 per cent of the applicants got the desired information under the RTI.
Of the 10 states, about 55 per cent people were provided the information in Uttar Pradesh while in Rajasthan and Haryana 66 per cent and 68 per cent people were allowed access to the information.
Over all only 68.41 per cent people received responses.
The time taken by the Public Information Officers in providing information also acted as a deterrent in smooth implementation of the Act, which was passed three years ago.
In some cases, the information was provided to the applicants by the officials after 150 days, that too, when he visited the concerned department for about five times to get the information, the survey revealed.
Nearly 43 per cent of the respondents had to visit the concerned department two to five times for getting the information, this made the whole process painstaking and time consuming, it said.
The experience of many in Bihar, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand was even worse, with more than 20 per cent of the respondents visited the concerned authorities more than 10 times.
Under Section 7 of the RTI Act, a Public Information Officer should respond to the required queries to the citizen within 30 days of the receiving of application.
Around 55 per cent of the respondents in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan did not get the information within the prescribed time while in Madhya Pradesh, the count was 68 per cent.
However, Orissa (94.74) and Uttarakhand (92.86) have faired well in giving the replies within 30 days to the applicants, the survey conducted by PRIA (Society for Participatory Research in Asia) said.
All of the respondents in Orissa said they had to visit two to five times to get the required information while over 73 per cent did so in Kerala. Over 34 per cent respondents in Madhya Pradesh said they went to the concerned offices six to 10 times to get the information.
In what has added the woes of the information seekers in many states, nearly 50 per cent of the PIOs were found to be "non-cooperative" in the matter.
The survey found that 66 to 67 per cent of authorities in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh were not cooperative in providing information to the citizens. Similarly, 30 to 42 per cent of the PIOs were not helpful in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Orissa
and Uttar Pradesh.
Use of RTI even turned out to be a nightmare for some in these states, with the applicants ended up with being thrashed by the officers or came in the line of fire of the PIOs for their persistent effort to get information.
PRIA is an NGO that works for democratic governance and people's participation.
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