You sure have heard of blood banks, eye banks, even gene banks. But an RTI Bank? Well, if NGO Kriya Katte has its way, then Karnataka will soon have an RTI bank, perhaps the first in the country.

The bank, likely to come up here in the next couple of months, will be a bank of information collected by different people under the Right To Information Act. Kriya Katte head Veeresh Belur said the main purpose of this Bank would be to avoid duplication of data.

“Why should one waste time on getting a piece of information which has already been acquired by someone else earlier under the RTI? The idea is to save time and money of the people and government officials,” says Mr Belur.
This is how it will work: People, after getting information, will make a photocopy of the document they have got under the RTI and submit it to Kriya Katte. Initially, Katte members will start disseminating the information. Later, other RTI activists would be involved. “We want to spread it like a movement across the State,” he adds.

Focus
To start with, the focus would be on Bangalore and on data/documents related to BBMP and BDA.
Later other government departments would be covered. Mr Belur plans to set up such data banks in each district of the State.