PANJIM, AUG 12
Spurred by the initiative in Bihar, Goa Government is contemplating setting up Right to Information (RTI) call centre, which will concede applicants to seek information over telephone from any department across the State.
Chief Secretary Sanjay Shrivastava said they “may enable” the call centre in a suggestion put forth by Magsaysay Award winner and social activist Arvind Kejriwal at an orientation workshop on RTI at Kala Academy on Thursday.
In step with the innovative move, Shrivastava while speaking to Herald said it will first study the documents of the functioning in Bihar.
“We are told that the Bihar Government is in the advance stage of finalising other modalities of the RTI call centre since its set up three years ago. We have requested Kejriwal to share with Goa Government the documents following which we will have a thorough study in Goa perspective. If things work out, we are happy to be the second State in India for setting up RTI call centre,” he said.
Five years after the Centre brought the RTI Act, Bihar emerged as a role model for its implementation by way of setting up RTI-on phone call centre in 2007.
The call centre facilitates RTI applicants to gather information over the telephone without writing and posting RTI application to different public authorities. An applicant interestingly also does not have to buy postal orders or demand drafts for paying the nominal fee of Rs 10.
“There is no need to name the officer or department. The applicant can make his query over the telephone and the taped conversation will be converted into a written application to forward to the respective public authority. The call centre operators do the rest,” Kejriwal told reporters on the sidelines of the seminar.
Interestingly, an applicant can also file appeals via call centre.
Speaking at the seminar, the RTI activist educated about the Act and methods to deal with queries and RTI applicants within its provisions under the Act. The seminar was participated by a large section of Head of Departments, Public Information Officers and APIOs of Government Departments.
“No doubt RTI is misused, but it is less than five per cent. This is evident is any law for that matter. However, there are certain provisions to handle the problem… RTI is one of the best laws in the world but there are issues with its proper implementation,” Kejriwal entailed.
He reeled out a few suggestions like setting up RTI call centres in every State, transparency among commissioners appointed and other proactive steps, for example, uploading enough required information on departments’ websites to ease out stress among PIOs.
At the same time, he said that matter concerning national security are ought not to be entertained.
He furthermore advised to shed out the barrier between PIOs and RTI applicants, to help evade several apprehensions.
He strongly suggested to create “culture of engagement” to purge out prejudices between RTI applicants and officials.
