How IT empowers people

Right to Information Act, 2005 mandates information on demand to the citizens

of India.. The extensive use of the Right to Information Act by the citizens is

imperative for the success of the Act which could bring in a positive change in

the current democratic set up of the country.

However, in the present scenario, effective implementation of the Act has a

major impediment in the form of lack of awareness among officials and citizens.

Unless both the segments are sensitized enough about the Act, it will just

remain in the papers.

The efforts on this front from government, media, NGOs and lawyers can be

boosted by the effective deployment of Information Communication Technlogy (ICT)

tools. ICT can help in awareness creation as well as ensure the speedy delivery

of the information sought by citizens.

The chapter II - 4 (1-a) of RTI Act specifies the need to computerize

department records and the use of internet to disseminate information to the

people. “Every public authority shall maintain all its records duly catalogued

and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information

under this Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be

computerised are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of

resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country on

different systems so that access to such records is facilitated”.

ICT as an enabler

This is the age of Internet, where any information is available on our
fingertips. So, it becomes all the more important that we use ICT to exercise

our information rights, which can bring about a positive change in our lives and

our governance systems. A proper information management system in the government

departments is required to strengthen the information flow.

ICT can be used to:



· Digitise and document all the manual records and archives


· Create a content repository to store all the records (Eg: Web Portal)


· Create information kiosks for citizens to access the stored information

Based on this, the central and state government departments are working

towards digitizing all records and publishing relevant information of each

department on their respective websites.

Yet another major initiative on this front is the RTI Portal initiated by

National Informatics Centre.

RTI Portal

NIC created the RTI Portal in an attempt to provide a portal gateway for the
citizens to search for information published by various government departments

on their websites.

The portal is meant to be a central repository of information where citizens

can access information of any government organization through a user-friendly

search engine. This is expected to ensure a proactive and fast flow of

information.

As of now, the portal is not yet full-fledged. On-line uploading of the
documents by various central / state governments/departments are in progress.

The government organisations have to contact NIC for a user ID to upload

information on to the portal. It was at the behest of the Ministry of Personnel

that NIC initiated the ICT support for RTI Act.

The support from NIC included:



- Setting up of a specialized website (http://rti.gov.in) for proactive
disclosure of documents of various public authorities under central & state

governments.



- Development of portal service for uploading of the documents by the
concerned public authorities



- Directory service of public authorities, public information officers,
appellate authorities, chief information commissions etc.



- User friendly search engines


- Workflow application for monitoring of status of requests, appeals,
complaints etc.



- Repository of the requests that have already been answered in a way that is
searchable by the citizens. (Source: http://www.digitalopportunity.org/article/view/125253/1/1088)

NIC has completed the creation of RTI website. Over 300 departments have

uploaded their documents. A repository of public information officers of various

departments has also been built, to help the citizens to approach them for

request for information. However, a lot more effort has to be put in for the

portal to be a well-equipped central repository of information.

The National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) has planned over 100,000 common service

centres to serve the citizens. Citizens can avail all central and state

e-governance services as well as digitized government information on the

Internet. The citizen information centers in several states also serve the

information needs of the citizens.

This is just the beginning. For the law to be truly effective and ICT to be

used extensively to enable the law, there should be an active participation from

the community at large, including government, bureaucracy, NGOs, media, lawyer

community and citizens.