‘Coming years crucial for RTI’s survival’

Shailesh Gandhi, RTI activist

Every year, close to 50,000 laws are passed across the nation and although we may say ignorance of the law is no excuse, not many of us know of the laws that have been passed in recent times. As compared to these, the Right to Information Act has been a resounding success. After only three years of its existence, RTI has done what not many laws have achieved.

The awareness level of this act is high and most people in urban India know of its utility in exposing inefficiency at every level of governance. RTI has immense potential considering the fact that unlike mass movements, the initiative of just a single individual can put pressure on the administration to clean up their act. I have noticed that public information officers (PIOs) of various government organisations are scared of RTI and its implications. While PIOs of some other organisations like BARC and the Power Grid Corporation have been keen to meet all of RTIs requirements.

Amendments could make the act significantly stronger than what it is today. However we have noticed that every time we amend the RTI, unscrupulous forces make sure that the act gets diluted further. Today our efforts are geared towards suggesting minor procedural changes in the act to the Information Commission without actually amending it so as not to compromise its essence. These procedural changes are hoped to prevent evasiveness on the part of authorities.

The next three to four years are crucial for the survival of RTI as it can still get stalled by various forces opposed to the law. After this period the act will be better entrenched in the system and won’t be easy to uproot. Thus if the act makes it for the next four years its survival is ensured. There is a long way to go until then. Sustained public campaigning is required to increase awareness of RTI among the citizenry as well as block any moves by the administration that will render the act ineffective.

Undoubtedly RTI is that law which will make all other laws work but only if we make renewed efforts to keep it in the spotlight. Imagine if even 0.5% of India’s population filed an RTI every month - that would be a large number of RTI’s.



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