Some BPL applicants are taking undue advantage of the free provision rule.
On learning that an applicant, categorised as below the poverty line (BPL), takes away hundreds of pages of information free-of-charge from government authorities every day, the information commissioner of that division asked this applicant what he did with all those heaps of papers? The applicant simply replied that selling the documents as scrap earned him enough to buy two square meals a day.
More or less, all the seven information commissioners in the state have been experiencing a similar plight. This has led the state’s chief information commissioner (CIC) Suresh Joshi to write to the government to rethink a key provision in the Right to Information Act that provides the information free of charge to a BPL person, no matter how many pages in the document.
In his report — tabled recently in both the houses of the state legislature — he has stated that the Act is being widely misused by BPL persons. “Complaints about the misuse have been on the rise and could prove hazardous for the success of the Act. Lakhs of papers are sought free-of-cost in the due period, which becomes impossible for the officer concerned to comply with. The government should restrict the number of papers that could be provided without any charges,” he has stated.
The misuse of the concession given is manifold. “Many times the BPL applicants act for someone else. In such cases, mostly, the applicant is illiterate or in such a state that he does not even understand what the documents are about. Secondly, BPL certificates are so easily available in the rural areas that even teachers and owners of two-wheeler seek the information free-of-cost after producing a BPL certificate,” said Vilas Patil, information commissioner, Nagpur division.
Another commissioner said that the privilege is sometimes used to blackmail government officials monetarily. “If the information sought is in thousands of pages, it becomes difficult for the officer to provide it in the stipulated time and this sometimes leads to hefty penalty in appeal. By threatening officials with the consequences, applicants demand money to take back the application,” the commissioner added.
About 28% of Maharashtra’s population is categorised BPL, while 10% of the total RTI applications are received from this class.
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