Directorate of education flooded with RTI queries

The constant flow of applications under the Right to
Information (RTI) Act is making the lives of the officials at the directorate of education miserable. 

If sources in the directorate are to be believed, it is receiving at least 10 applications per day seeking various kinds of information. 

And since the replies to these applications are to be given within a stipulated time lest officials concerned are penalised, the officials are giving priority to the RTI applications.

“Our day to day work is suffering as the directorate is flooded with RTI applications. Our officers are engaged in dealing with the RTI queries rather that doing other work,” a senior official of the directorate told DNA.  The sources claimed that although some of the applications seek genuine information, most of them are filed due to personal grudges against the officials for not doing their work. 

“There have been instances where the same person has kept on filing RTI applications at regular intervals,” said the officer.   The official said that an aggrieved father, whose daughter committed suicide because she scored less marks in the common entrance examination for D.Ed course, accused and held the education department responsible for the death of his daughter and demanded compensation from the department. 

Citing an example how some applications seek baseless information, he said, “We also had a case where the applicant had asked for the number of students who appeared for an examination before 1956. Such records are impossible to give as there were no computers back then and the documents are also difficult to locate,” he said.  

There have been couple of occasions when officials have preferred to pay the penalty for not providing information rather than searching old records. 

However, RTI activists feel that people are entitled to know things under the RTI Act and it cannot be stopped. 

“We would like to suggest to the department that it should immediately give information suo moto under section 4 of the Act on some aspects of the functioning of the department. It would reduce the flow of the application by about 25 %,” claimed RTI activist, Vivek Velankar. 

He also suggested that like the Pune Municipal Corporation, the directorate of education also can allow people to examine the records once in a week. It would also help in reducing the flow of such applications.