12 April,2010 09:26 AM IST | | Alifiya Khan
Allocates Rs 50 lakh for RTI centre that will store data so you can get answers without making application
The enthusiasm with which residents have made use of the Right to Information (RTI) Act has led a query-burdened civic body to decide on a dedicated RTI centre to make life easier for itself as well as applicants.
Allocating Rs 50 lakh for the RTI centre, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has claimed the facility will be the country's first such in a civic body.
The idea is to stock all documents at the centre that RTI applicants may need for the information they seek, and to eventually digitalise these documents. Then, there will be no need for those who seek information to apply for it as they can simply walk into the centre and access it.
Tired of spending a lot of time on cumbersome RTI queries, the civic body has earmarked Rs 25 lakh for setting up the RTI library and Rs 25 lakh for digitalisation of records.
Hands full
MiD DAY had earlier reported how the PMC spends more than 10 per cent of its working hours on RTI queries; the idea is the library will save the civic body time it spends in answering RTI queries.
MiD DAY had also reported how Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade had issued a circular a couple of months ago asking officers to keep aside Monday evening only for RTI work because of the ever-increasing burden of queries.
Leader of the House Nilesh Nikam, who had proposed the idea of the centre, said the library would be the first-ever RTI centre in a civic body in the country.
"The burden of RTI had increased so much that we were spending all the available time digging up old skeletons rather than getting on with fresh ideas," said Nikam. "All departments and officers were involved; a lot of time is wasted in this. That's when I proposed the creation of a separate centre just for RTI and started work on its budget."
Two phases
The RTI project, as it has been christened in the PMC, shall be implemented in two phases.
"First, a library will be set up that will have copies of all documents RTI activists can ask for, and so they need not file applications. They will have direct access to the data," said Nikam. "In the second phase, the digitalisation of files will take place, where data will be in the form of a soft copy and wherever necessary people can take copies or printouts."
Shivaji Daundkar, PMC's establishment officer, who looks after RTI applications, said a separate centre
was welcome as the burden of RTI applications had become too much to handle for regular staff.
"In 2009, the PMC received 6,793 RTI applications, which means an average of 20 RTI applications a day," said Daundkar. "Even if one officer spends a day answering one query by accessing records and getting copies, imagine the time wasted."
Nikam said once the RTI library was in place, no official hours would be wasted on RTI as the library would have separate staff of two people for the purpose.
