JOIN USOnline RTI and voluntary disclosure can help Bengaluru citizens
The online RTI provision is being looked upon as a welcome alternative compared to the physical one, given the hurdles the applicants face. Filing RTI applications physically requires more time, energy and money. The online option can significantly save all of these, but it is also not without problems.
In the eight zones of BBMP, Deputy Commissioners (Revenue) and in the head office, Deputy Commissioner (Administration) have been made as nodal officers for online RTI. “Yet, the applications are not reaching the concerned PIOs. Nodal officers should provide login credentials for all PIOs on the website,” says Veeresh Bellur.
Activists feel that online RTI must be popularised and strengthened, with PIOs getting adequate expertise to handle it. “The current success rate online is a mere 5%. Many of the PIOs are not tech-savvy enough to manage it,” complains Veeresh. He adds that the online RTI is beneficial to BBMP even in monetary terms as the money directly goes to their bank account.
Guru feels that both offline and online RTI systems should be available. Limiting it only to online with poor data infrastructure and low levels of digital literacy will be useless, he notes.
Suo moto declaration
Veeresh urges the BBMP to upload necessary information suo moto to their concerned websites/portals so that people can access it easily. “BBMP has made a portal called Integrated Finance Management System (IFMS) for information related work orders. But it is not being updated regularly. Also, citizens are finding it difficult to access the portal due to server issues,” he adds.
“Section 4 of the RTI act mandates BBMP to provide information about the organisation, its policy, the procedure of running the organisation, staff strength, salaries paid, duties, circulars received, the status of implementation and more, voluntarily online. Much of this information is not available,” notes Kodur Venkatesh.
A look at the RTI section on the BBMP website reveals that a lot of information uploaded by various zones is outdated. Also, all zones have not uploaded all the required information. Most of the information on already issued information under RTI dates back to pre-2011. Many of the numbers listed in many of the disclosures under Section 4(1)(b) are wrong. The officials privately admit that staff shortage is a problem that hinders attending to RTI requests, updating the information and uploading disclosures.
How to apply under online RTI
- Go to: https://rtionline.karnataka.gov.in/
- Click on the ‘submit request’ button
- Register and fill out the form
- Choose your BBMP zone listed from 212 to 220
- Pay Rs 10 as the fee.
- You will receive an acknowledgement with PIO’s number, using which you can track the matter.