Congress run-states may soon follow the model of an RTI call centre run by the NDA government in Bihar to make information more accessible to the poor and illiterate. When asked if the non-subsidized option involving over a 10-fold increase in the cost won't defeat the call centre's object of taking RTI to the poor, minister Prithviraj Chavan said that if the call centre route worked out to be more expensive, the citizen had the option of sending his RTI application by post. "Cost is not a major issue — whether for government or for the applicant," he added.
The difference in perception between Sonia Gandhi and Chavan is obvious. While Chavan sees the call centre essentially as a convenient mode of filing RTI applications, the UPA chief took it as a breakthrough for empowering the masses to enforce accountability.
Whatever choice DoPT finally makes on the question of subsidy, the call centre is likely to be run on the lines of the Bihar model in the first year. This is because UNDP is funding it as an e-governance project developed by the department of information technology. UNDP has agreed to provide Rs 2.5 crore for setting up infrastructure in Gurgaon and meeting operational costs in first year.
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ESM: The RTI is a powerful weapon and a tool to combat anomalies of various pay panels and pay commissions which has denigrated Armed Forces Personnel in respect of salary, allowances, rank pay, warrant of precedence, decadence of rank structure and most important of all the honour of a Jawan.
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