Information means any material in any form including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force but does not include "file notings" [S.2(f)].
It includes the right to:
- inspect works, documents, records.
- take notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records.
- take certified samples of material.
- obtain information in form of printouts, diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through printouts.[S.2(j)]
This is the first time I believe that India has a law that will make the officer directly responsibe for non-performance. Under the law, if an information is requested by anyone, then the information has to be given out, provided it doesn't interfere with national security, ofcourse. So strategic military plans etc. won't be given out.
Infact, a nationwide awareness-cum-assistance campaign has been launched where people are enouraged not to pay bribes. As Hindustan Times reported:
An NDTV article reported that Volunteers are educating villagers to use RTI. It claimed that 16,000 people have already "pledged" to never bribe again.More than 700 organisations across the country have come together as part of the campaign during which the public will be advised on how to get their work done in the government without paying bribes.
"Assistance centres would function in 48 cities spread across 16 states in the country during 1st to 15th July. 1500 trained volunteers will help people in making and filing RTI applications in these centres," said Arvind Kejriwal of NGO 'Parivartan', one of the organisers of the campaign.
If you are thinking that it's just another law and nothing will happen, then ... wake up dude! People have already used it to their benefit. You just have to use the law. The same NDTV article stated that a villager used the RTI against "influential people" who were misusing the government scheme under which poor people are supposed get their grains at low cost. He got his reply within 8 days (without bribing ofcourse), which is just pretty fast for India. Not only that, Hindustan Times states in one article how VISHNU Narain Shivpuri used RTI to get the family pension within 2 hours of filling the RTI application, which he had been waiting for the last 5 years!
NDTV has an article which claims that a retired government employee got Rs. 5000 as pension instead of Rs. 7000 that he should have got. Even after filing 16 applications to the Pune Municipal Corporation in the last 4 years, and numerous letters to the Government of India, he never got a reply. NDTV states:
Just when he was going to give into the systems inefficiencies he learnt about the Right to Information Act.
Phongde decided to make one last attempt and made use of the RTI Act to access all the papers related to his pension from the PMC.That's pretty good for the new law, and good to see people are actually responding to the RTI applications.
He also asked for the status of his grievance applications made to the PMC in relation to his pension.
In three months Phongde's papers were revaluated and his pension was upgraded to Rs 8000 per month. He also received a cheque of Rs 1,78,000 as payment due to him for the last four years.
However, I want to hear more about people who didn't get a good or worse, any response to their RTI application. I hope it's rare, but I won't be surprised. Ofcourse, the media covers only the good case scenario.
Well, let's not bribe anyone, and beat the corruption with the new RTI act...
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