8 years of Right to Information Act in India : An Appraisal
Abstract :
Right
to Information (RTI)Act is landmarklegislation which was enacted in India in the
year 2005 which has completed eight years recently. It has brought radical
change in the country’s administration and society. With the help of RTI Act one
can come to know about the working of the public authority. Earlier citizen
were not aware about the affairs of public authority, thus it resulted in wide
spread corruption in the system.RTI has completed 8 years recently and it
carries many success stories in all over the country alongwith some bad instances
in form of attacks on RTI activists and killing of them. RTI has helped many people
especially at the grass root level such as public distribution system, public
works etc. There are two types of commissions in the country one is Central
Information Commission (CIC) and other one is State Information Commission
(SIC). For central level public authority matter one has to approach CIC and
for state level SIC in appeal and complaint process. Generally RTI application/appeal
is filled manually in office of public authorities and state commissions’
offices respectively but for last couple of years some public authorities and
commissions have implemented online RTI application/appeal mechanism which
saves lot of time and money ultimately resulting in smooth administration of
Act. Online RTI application/appealin India is in the nascent stage.
Present
paper will discuss the background of RTI in India, recent scenario of RTI at
central level and in various states. I will evaluate the progress of RTI in
various states with the help of primary and secondary data.Moreover personal
experiences shared by RTI Applicantsincluding me will be the plus point of the
said paper.
Key
Words :- Right to Information, 8 years, Appraisal