JUST five months old, India’s Right To Information (RTI) Act is supposed to let you cut through red tape and empower you to ask questions from your government through a simple form—at a cost of Rs 10.
Now, bureaucrats tasked with running the RTI in many organisations are managing to sling another ribbon around you, simply by insisting that you give them the Rs 10 only through a demand draft.
Cash? No, they argue, ‘‘our rules’’ don’t allow it.
That’s certainly not what the RTI Act says: You can pay in cash, demand draft or cheque. The choice is yours, not the government department’s concerned.
Besides being subject to the trouble of obtaining a Rs 10 demand draft, it costs anywhere from Rs 25 to Rs 40 to get the draft made.
‘‘We do not have the system to accept cash of Rs 10,’’ argued A M Jha, deputy general manager (Corporate Communication), Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL).
IOCL is a government-owned oil company, like Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), both of whom are taking the same stand. In fact, at HPCL, people are also advised against filing such applications in person. Post is preferred.
‘‘I am aware that, as per the RTI Act, the applicants may pay the fee by cash. I am not aware if some of our offices are following a different procedure. I will take legal opinion and revert,’’ said R L Motwani of HPCL.
Even at the Airports Authority of India, cash is not accepted. ‘‘We do not take cash,’’ confirmed General Manager Pratima Gautam. ‘‘Usually, government offices don’t accept cash.’’
Indo-Burma Petroleum (IBP), also a government-owned company, seems stuck somewhere in the middle. ‘‘Cash is permitted,’’ Chief Manager and Public Information Officer (PIO, Western Region) V K Mahajan admitted. ‘‘But our office prefers demand drafts.
The public relations office of the Income-Tax Department, meanwhile, initially said the court fee stamp (valid only for state government agencies) was accepted as application fee but was noncommittal on whether the fee of Rs 10 is accepted in cash at their offices.
And Bharat Petroleum Company Limited has waived the fee entirely. ‘‘We have waived payment and will provide information free of cost,’’ said General Manager and PIO Vinod Giri. ‘‘Taking the fee would cost us Rs 200 to count it. This is better for us.’’
But for Monish Kumar, under-secretary at the Central Information Commission, all these variations are violations of the actual law. ‘‘Public information officers should not be insisting on the mode of payment,’’ he said. ‘‘The option of payment is to be exercised by the applicant. If such a thing is happening, it should be brought to the notice of the authorities.’’
the way out
Confused? Just send your RTI applications to the Postal Department. According to Chief Postmaster General K Noorjehan, the department also functions as the nodal agency for RTI applications for about 65 departments and offices of the Central government.
Any post office will accept the applications in a sealed envelope, along with Rs 10 in cash. So just write the name and address of the department’s public information officer and, at no extra cost, it will be delivered
nganesh@expressindia.com