Monday, July 13, 2009

What is the shortest time needed for RTI to have effect?

Less than 24 hours is the answer. A colleague, Jayalakshmi told me that she had applied for an "Address Proof Card" which is being issued by the post offices on payment of Rs.240. She had applied for this in February, and she hasnt heard anything about it yet. Her repeated attempts to find out the status of her application at the Post Officer were only answered with "It will come". So she came to me. I told her that we can file an RTI applicaiton. And so I drafted an application, emailed her, asked her to fill in her details like address etc, enclose a copy of the receipt she obtained on payment of Rs.240 and asked her to enclose a Postal Order for Rs.10 as application fee. This she sent by post.

I gave the draft in the morning. She took a printout in the afternoon and sent it by post. The next morning at 10 AM she was at my place smiling. She said that the Post master there had called her and told her that the ID card was ready long time back and that she needs to go to the Mylapore office and collect the card. He also told her that she could have just come and asked him and as to where there was a need to file an RTI. She told him that she tried that many times and that she could not get an reply. He also requested her to come to his office and get back the application. He also offered that he will ask his people to cancel the Postal order and refund the amount of Rs.10.

After meeting me she went to Mylapore post office to collect the card. There too a senior official gave her his mobile number and told her that she can contact him directly over phone if she has any problems. She came back to my office at 11 Am with the card in hand. The card that was eluding her for 5 months, brought to her hand in 24 hours, by the Right to Information act, 2005.

The draft RTI application can be seen here.

1 comment:

Waseem said...

hi
can anyone sent me RTI application regarding address card issued by post office on waseem786pb@gmail.com
i ll be very thankful