RTI Act was passed by the Government with the hope that it would provide relief to the common man by making governance transparent. Experience shows that the process of using RTI Act has become very cumbersome. It is too complicated for a common man to use RTI.
The most common problems being faced by the people are as follows:
- Many people are illiterate. They cannot write RTI applications. Due to this factor alone, RTI cannot be used by a huge section of population.
- People do not know which Department to approach for which kind of issue. And without this knowledge, it is impossible to file an RTI application today.
- Even if one knows the Department, there are so many PIOs in the same Department that it would be quite difficult for a person to know who is the right PIO.
- Even if a person somehow is able to find the right PIO, the PIO refuses to accept application on some pretext or the other.
- Depositing application fee of Rs 10 is another nightmare. One has to either go in person to the concerned office to deposit cash or make a Demand Draft or a postal order to send it by post. In addition to having a financial cost, it also involves spending a lot of time.
- If one does not get right information, filing an appeal is even more complicated and tiring process.
In nutshell, it is extremely difficult to file an RTI application or to file an appeal today. This is reducing RTI to be an affair of elite, urban, educated middle class.
How do we take RTI to the illiterate masses in rural areas?
It is possible to do that and to address all the above issues by using simple technology of call centers. It will work as follows:
· The Government will hire a call center and will give two phone nos to the public. One of the no would be RTI Helpline No (RHN) and the other will be RTI Application No (RAN).
· RHN will be an ordinary no with normal call charges. If any citizen wants to get any help about how to use RTI, he can use this no.
· RAN will be a premium no. Anyone who wishes to file an RTI application will call up this no. Any call to this no will be charged Rs 10 in addition to normal call charges for the duration of the call. Rs 10 is the application fee for RTI application.
· So, when a person calls up RAN, he will be asked to tell his name, address, what information does he want and from which Department does he want that information. This conversation will be voice recorded and also typed on computer simultaneously by the call center executive receiving the call.
· If the citizen does not know the department concerned, then the call center staff will help him identify it. But in some rare cases, even the call center staff would not know about the exact department. To deal with such cases, the Government could assign some official to help call center staff.
· Many ordinary citizens may not even know what type of information to ask for. They would just know their problem. Call center staff could be trained to help and deal with such cases. A good amount of hand holding would be required to help poor and illiterate people.
· Once an RTI application has thus been filed, the call center (CC) will take two copies of it and send one copy to the applicant.
· The other copy will be sent to the concerned PIO by one of the following methods:
o If the PIO has access to e-mail, it will be sent through e-mail. This is the quickest and cheapest way to transmit application.
o If he does not have access to e-mail, the application will be faxed to him.
o If he neither has access to e-mail nor to the fax, it will be sent to him by post.
· The Call Centre (CC) will be declared as an APIO by the Government to be able to accept applications and transfer them to concerned PIO.
· The PIO will have 35 days (from the date of receipt of application in CC) to provide information. During this period, the PIO should prepare information and send it to the applicant directly.
· If applicant is not satisfied with the information received, he can call up the CC again and express his dissatisfaction after telling his reference no.
· His dissatisfaction will be voice recorded and typed. This will become his first appeal, which would be forwarded to the first appellate authority in the same manner as the RTI application was done in first place.
· The first appellate will deal with the appeal as he normally does. The results will be communicated to the applicant.
· If the applicant is not satisfied with the first appellate order, he can similarly file his second appeal.
Financial implications:
- Government will have to share a part of Rs 10 application fee with telecom companies. In order to account for that, the Government may decide to raise the application fee for applications filed through call center by a small amount. But it is suggested not to do that immediately. It would be best to let it run for the first few months with the present level of fee. If the loss of revenue is small, there is no point in increasing the cost of application and cause hardships to the public.
- Government would get a share in the normal call charges collected by the telecom company for the call duration in addition to the application fee. This amount will partly offset the above loss.
- Government will need to hire a call center and bear the charges for the same.
- Cost of transmitting applications or appeals to PIOs or appellate authorities and making calls to applicants for providing information will have to be paid to CC on actual basis. But this is the cost of processing application, for which the Government collects Rs 10 application fee. Therefore, this should not be treated as an additional cost.
Amendments to RTI rules required to implement this system:
- The CC will have to be declared as an APIO.
- Acceptance of fee in this manner on phone will have to be included in the rules as an accepted mode of payment of fee.
Benefits of this system:
· Now, even an illiterate person will be able to file an RTI application – citizen can just pick up a phone and speak out what he wants to know
· CC executive will help in drafting right questions for the citizens’ problems
· No need to know the right department or the right PIO. CC will help in doing that.
· No need to make DD or postal order for depositing fee.
· Appeal can be filed on phone
· No need to travel to the office of PIO – accessible from any phone from anywhere.
· Application could be filed in a few minutes against a few days it takes today
Multi-lingual – people can file applications in their own languages
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