‘How many know about RTI?’

‘How many know about RTI?’
times of india, chennai edition page no.4.
TOI Readers Are Enthusiastic About Fighting Corruption Through RTI. But Many Want To Know How
• How many of us know about RTI? Hardly a single digit percentage of population is aware of such an act. Even those like me who know a bit about the act don’t know all the details such as where to file an application andhow to file. There are many questions about the act. Awareness among the common people is important. —Shalji V

• Culprit government officers should be traced and punished. —S Murali

• Charge a moderately good amount from the public for services rendered by government departments and pay incentives to employees, but take strong action to root out their delaying tactics. —Ravindranath Kavuri

• Officers work best under fear here so create the fear to get things done.
—Sudarshan

• The government must be creative to bring awareness to the common man about RTI. But unfortunately there is a resistance to following rules and regulations. Officials must be taught to follow rules. As punishment, officers should be sent to experience how the common man is affected for not disclosing information at the right time.
—Iruthayaraj Teresa

• Create awareness among common people. —Akila

• RTI is useful only for educated and courageous people as the government and its employees are quite powerful and will intimidate the people who demand their rights. But RTI should not be the only tool to corner the corrupt. Those who protest against corruption should be protected. At the end of the day, common people also engage in and encourage corruption. Punishing the officers who do not disclose information is the right thing to do. This is a good action. Make officials follow the rules. The concerned lower-level employees should also be punished as the these officials are more involved in corruption than higher officers. Online filing will help those who are busy. Having a grievance mechanism to follow up on the complaints is a very good idea. Along with reprimanding and punishing the concerned officials, the victims should also be compensated by this mechanism. —N Lokanathan

• If we make the process of filing RTI easier, i.e, through online and so on, a huge volume of petitions will come in, which could be difficult to manage and track. So we need to recruit more people to handle RTI complaints or link the RTI process with a state-level Lokayukta to handle the work load.
—Aananth C N

• Try to spread RTI in rural areas.
—Sabina

• Appoint public relations officers in each government office who can give details about RTI. —Chinnasamy

• Making it easier to file RTI applications online would enable more users to address their concerns. —Ashok

• RTI is the golden "key". To use this key, especially in critical situations, everyone should understand the law very well. To use this key, knowledge is essential. Only the state government can educate people and make them aware. State and central governments can take many steps to promote RTI awareness. One way is to educate and motivate people to use RTI. RTI should be included in social studies subjects in schools. They should be made part of the curriculum. College-level seminars on RTI should be arranged to encourage students. Social clubs and NGOs also have an important role to play in increasing awareness. Ultimately, people who have regular jobs in companies should be able to use RTI if they are only keen and alert.
—V Srinivasan

• Create a grievance mechanism so that information unearthed by RTI is followed up and corrective action taken!
—S Venugopalan