Right to Information (RTI) Act has provided a mechanism to people to seek information from public authorities. Should the same information be sought by people individually again and again or can we have a mechanism under which information once provided is available to others also. Can we leverage ICT to make this possible? This was the challenge before us when we started designing RTI portal for Delhi Government in 2005 before RTI Act 2005 was introduced. The other requirements were to have data on disposal of applications and appeals, monitoring of disposal of application by departments/agencies and the PIOs, cases of delay and preparation of various reports as per requirement of RTI Act.

It's been two years that RTI Act has been launched in Delhi and the Delhi Government by now holds a fair experience of how this Act works. The RTI Acts includes compilation of statistics, uploading data for public access using a web-based program at the end of every month. The web-based system generated required statistics for the entire State and all PIOs were exposed to work on a distributed system. Based on this experience it was decided to go in for a web-based database driven system for RTI Portal where

  • Data on each application, on receipt, would be fed by PIO in the web-based program which will generate a unique ID for each application.
  • Type of information sought would be categorised by capturing it in pre-specified categories at the receipt stage for future analysis.
  • Basic data of information seeker would also be captured to analyse the information requirement of various types of citizens.
  • Information supplied would also be fed in the same database with key words for search
  • Progress on disposal would be fed by PIOs and would be visible to applicants
  • No separate compilation of data from PIOs would be required
  • Mandatory information as per 17 manuals under RTI Act would be made available for each department/agency.
  • Search could be made on information provided by prospective information seekers to see whether information being sought by him/her has already been sought by others.
  • Weak spots in various departments/agencies as well as information requirement of people could be identified for taking remedial action.

http://delhigovt.nic.in/rti/default.asp received the “First Prize” for Web-Based Application for Right to Information, 2005 at the 5th India Tech Excellence Awards.

All PIOs/APIOs were assigned unique numbers which are used to derive unique Id of applications and map application and the PIO. For 17 manuals, templates were designed and the PIOs were trained to prepare the same and then upload them on the website. This way, manuals of any department could be accessed by people and the PIOs could modify them as per requirement. At that time it was an attempt to have a website where content could be uploaded and modified by large number of users. The website was designed using Windows 2000 OS, SQL Server 2000 RDBMS and ASP by programmers of IT Department led by Mr. Santulan Chaubey, System Analyst and Ms. Neelima Satija, Programmer.

Since information on PIO/APIO is updated by them without its centralisation, information is most updated. The statistics on applications, appeals, pendancy with PIOs etc. are available online in addition to the RTI ACT, Rules, downloadable forms etc. In case applicant is required to pay additional fee for extra pages or for cost of sample etc., the application software has all formats using which letters are generated and thus the status of application also gets updated which can be tracked online by selecting the department, PIO and then clicking on the unique Id.

The application software also generates the letter to be sent to information seeker along with information sought. For this the PIO need to key-in the information to be provided in the application software. This way the database gets the information supplied along with information sought which can then be searched by others. By choosing pre-defined categories of information the PIO can assign keywords. The system also enables string search. The attempt was to start a mini Google type search engine which could be made more intelligent later. By clicking on the links thrown up by the system one can see the details of information sought and supplied. In case only photocopies of office documents are sought, the same are not kept in the database because of constraint of low bandwidth, non-availability of scanners with PIOs and large number of pages sought by people.

The system has proved to be quite successful in providing invaluable statistics and search on information being sought by citizens. As on 16th June 2008, 67081 applications were received by PIOs of Delhi Government out of which 64583 (96.3%) were disposed off. Out of the pending 1719 applications, 780 were on account of non-payment of additional fee by the applicants. The system also provides further break-up of disposal figures in terms of full information supplied, part information supplied and applications rejected, for each department as well as each PIO. The website provides details on type and nature of information as well as use of this law by people below the poverty line. This data is made available for each department as well as for the whole government. The information sought is categorised in six broad areas and 71 sub-areas.

RTI Portal is also being successfully by the PhD scholars in their research work in the field of RTI and they are finding the Portal useful and handy. The Portal also acts as a performance indicator of a particular department/agency/ office. The Portal has been built using a software, that is highly scalable and can also be extended to other States and Central Ministries/ Departments. Availability of information sought at one place also acts as an excellent repository of information that can be very useful to people from government agencies. The software used is offered free of cost to other States/UTs. Citizens have every right to know how the government is functioning and the RTI portal is one such gateway for the citizens that have empowered their right for quick access of Information published by various Government departments.