8 years of Right to Information Act in India : An Appraisal | Kalpeshkumar L Gupta

8 years of Right to Information Act in India : An Appraisal

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