The Right To Information (RTI) Act has been in force for over two years now. Yet, its use by the ordinary citizenry has been minimal if not erratic, and it is mostly non-governmental organisations and the media who have used the Act to ferret out information, seek accountability, and initiate action.
Marketing and management consultant, quiz master and storyteller PRAKASH SUBBARAO, who recently started wearing the hat of activist by setting up bangaloregiri.com, illustrates four ways in which he has used RTI over the past year to seek redress for everyday civic and personal issues.
***
Exhibit A: We have a “bad” neighbour who is very argumentative. She keeps collecting dry leaves from her garden and burning them every ten days or so. When we told her to stop this practice she initially said that she had “taken permission” from the Corporation. Subsequently, she became defiant and told us to “do whatever we wished to”. We did two things. (a) We went to the police station and made a complaint. Contrary to our perception that the police are sluggish, they were at the spot within ten minutes and they counselled her that she should not burn the leaves but dispose of them by giving them to the Corporation workers every morning for removal. And (b) We made an RTI application to the Corporation stating the facts of the matter and asking them whether this was permissible, etc. With 3 days two Corporation people went to see her. They told her not to burn leaves and in addition, took a letter from her stating that she would not burn the leaves in future.
Exhibit B: We have another neighbour who has a noisy dog. The dog barks from 5.30 am till 11.30 pm almost non stop. Though a very good pedigree dog, the neighbours ill treat it by keeping it constantly locked up, forget to feed it food (it starts barking continuously at food time to remind them to feed it) etc. Rather than make a complaint, I decided to make a RTI application to the police. When I went to the police station, the constable on duty at the desk was not even aware about RTI! I waited a few minutes and then saw the sub-inspector and asked him who the public information officer was. Initially he tried to persuade me (a) that his police station was not the place to submit the RTI application but that I should submit it to a senior officer and (b) that instead of an RTI application, I could just submit a complaint. I was firm regarding submitting the RTI aplication and he accepted it, signing the copy and affixing his rubber stamp to it. Within 4 days, a police constable went to the neighbour’s house. I do not know what transpired but I can see a visible improvement in the treatment of the dog. Its barking has also come down substantially.
Exhibit C: The Corporation cleaners who used to remove garbage from our premises stopped doing so and became erratic in their duties. They took the stand that they would only remove household garbage and not remove the leaves that fall from the plants and trees. Within 48 hours of a RTI application being submitted, the local junior engineer met us and apologized for the inconvenience caused to us. From that day on, our whole road’s garbage gets very efficiently cleared.
Exhibit D: I have an account with Indian Overseas Bank. The Jayanagar branch has extremely inefficient people who think that they are doing a big favour by dealing with their own customers. I saw some strange entries in my passbook. One of them read: VID-7301- 8997-0-1 1.00. They had deducted Re 1 from my account. Just imagine what would happen if IOB deducted Re 1 from each of the millions of people who have accounts with them: (a) they would be richer by millions and almost everyone would say “It’s only a rupee, why bother”.
There was another instance where they multiple charged me for a debit card purchase done at a medical store. Whereas I had made one purchase for Rs. 130, they debited me three times and credited me once for the same purchase. Enquiries with the local branch resulted in “make a complaint addressed to our manager; we will check and get back to you”. They never got back to me. I therefore decided to make a RTI complaint to the bank. Since I did not know where to submit the complaint, I sent it by Speedpost to their head office in Madras. Their law department responded within ten days apologizing for the error and reversing the wrong entries. I also find an improvement in the way customers are being serviced by that particular branch.
***
Using RTI is very simple.
1. Go to your nearest post office and buy five postal orders of Rs.10 face value. Keep these for making five RTI applications.
2. If you wish to make a complaint, write down your complaint and submit it to the Public Information Officer of the concerned organization. (You must check whether there is a nearby Public Information Officer or whether you should go to their Head Office etc.)
3. Make sure that you have a photocopy of your complaint so that you can take an acknowledgement from the office. They will normally sign and affix a seal and a date stamp.
The fact of the matter is that you do not need anyone’s help in this matter. You can get immediate results by using RTI. Why not use RTI to get an immediate and long lasting solution?
Once you have made the RTI application, email me the results that you obtained: prakash.subbarao@gmail.com
If you are interested in talking to me, my contact number is 94481 37203, and you could call me any time in the evening (6 pm-midnight).
thanks a lot churumuri.
good one..thanks. Quite useful
Prakash Subbarao == tarlesubba?
Just wondering how the Dog was made quiet. Never knew that bangalore police have such magical techniques up their sleeve.
Not A Witty Nick……………. definitely a programmer
I am extremely happy and elated to read this. Please keep up the good work. If only more citizens follow your example the government machinery will become more efficient and corruption will ger extinguished.
Useful one that. Thanks.
Wondeful way to educate people. I wish the newspapers regularly published instructive columns and articles such as the ones on this blog. ~~~~
That was awesome information. Thank you Churumuri.
I think this Prakash Subbarao is a Nutcase…
Didn’t he have anything else to complain… rather that complaining on his “bad” neighbour, noisy dog and the The Corporation cleaners..
excellent , some people like preetham requires clear understanding of RTI , Seem he favouring Corrupt govt machinery..
really helpful info. keep it up man!
Thanks Churumuri for being the ONLY media to have taken the initiative to tell us how to go about filing the RTI.
No other media bothered about it. Stranger still is the silence of the central govt. which actually bought in the act.
The Congres has never bothered to tell the people of India, how the RTI can be used, why it has to be used and what are the benefits of RTI.
A massive advertising and PR campaign was necessary to educate people about RTI.
Full marks to UPA for bringing in the RTI act.
Zero marks to UPA not launching a campaign to inform people about RTI
This is the sorry tale of UPA. They have numerous achievements to their credit, but they have never COMMUNICATED their achievements to the people. Sad but true.
Dear Sir,
Kindly tell me how can i use RTI for non govermennt , like peerless insurance company which is not repay my investment
pls tell me the whole procedure to file a RTI against SBI bank regarding education loan . pls reply me fast
churumuri:
Thanks for the wonderful information. You have done a wonderful job of educating general public.
Can u please come up with some more detailed way of filing the RTI. I have read your points under “Using RTI is very simple.”
I did not understand
1. The difference between a complain and a RTI
2. Does every govt office has Public Information Officer? What if they say that we do not have any? Another RTI :)
I will be great if you can show us scanned copy of your complain. You can very well dark out the personal information like name, address, etc.
I will waiting for your replies.
I had submitted vrs to my bank.but they kept it in cold storage til i reminded and rejected saying not in format after 2 months.i am suffering from ieg pain. Cannot attend office. Age 58 work in i o b pollibetta please help by giving proper advice p r ramaswamy
i m frm lucknow… i want to file RTI against jal sansthan.. can i use directly RTI or before using it i shuld hav to submit an application regarding the same issue in the jal sansthan..
pls inform the procedure of using RTI.. guide me as early as possible
Can i use RTI to get the financial details,electoral process, choosing of nominated members to the Mosque managing committee & it’s day to day working