‘State RTI portal more of a hassle than help’

Ashish Negi

Rampur, February 11

About one and a half years ago, the state government started an online portal to provide information under the Right to Information Act. The portal was started in a bid to ensure transparency, accountability and the removal of corruption in government work.

May weaken cases: LAWYER

• According to lawyer Anil Saraswati, the aforementioned difficulties may weaken the applicants’ cases
• The problem does not end here, once applicants file their appeals online, they are unable to see the documents attested under the ‘supporting documents’ option, he added
• Several requests had to be made to the department in this regard through telephone and email, according to the lawyer

However, people of the state are unable to benefit fully from the portal due to several shortcomings.

Former Municipal Councillor (Rampur) Hari Om Thakur said applicants can upload documents with a maximum size of 1 MB on the portal, which is very less in many cases. Applicants are not able to upload all the documents related to a particular case.

Often, the documents that are attested have to be compressed/modified through an application, rendering them completely illegible. Due to this, the officers concerned may not be able to provide a solution to the applicant. According to lawyer Anil Saraswati, such difficulties may weaken the applicants’ cases.

The problem does not end here, for once the applicants file their appeals online, they are unable to see the documents attested under the ‘supporting documents’ option, he said, adding that several requests must be made to the department through telephone and email.

About three months ago, the Secretary of the state Information Commission had written to the Secretary (AR), Government of Himachal Pradesh, regarding the increase in the size of supporting documents that can be attached, but to no avail.

Considering the relevance of the online RTI portal, special attention should be paid to keeping all the features of the website in good order, Saraswati added.

According to Shiv Mohan, Joint Secretary (Administrative Reforms), HP government, the process of allowing a larger size of files to be uploaded on the site is underway by the HP State Electronics Development Corporation Limited.