Ten years of the RTI

The Right to Information Act recently completed 10 years of existence. Established on the initiative of various civil society activists, the passage of this Act marked a momentous occasion. In a country where government officials and ministers have always held on to information as a source of influence and power, citizens could finally use a potent tool to retrieve information, and critique and expose errant bureaucrats. The Act held the promise of transparency and accountability, and the likelihood of reducing corruption.

The impact of the RTI act was phenomenal, especially in its initial days. Activists and journalists used RTI applications to expose several scams and dodgy deals. For example, it was through the filing an RTI application that the extent of corruption in the Commonwealth Games and 2G spectrum allocations was exposed. A decade on, while the number of RTI applications has risen, the fervour of its initial years has declined. Citizens and activists may be just as eager to ask tough questions, but bureaucrats appear to have mounted a resistance. This is no surprise. RTI disclosures are often controversial, and public authorities have grown cautious about what information can be made public.

Moreover, the time taken to answer an RTI has also gone up: to an entire year in some cases. There have also been several attacks on activists who use the RTI. According to an NGO, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, as reported by a website, there have been as many as 289 attacks on RTI activists over the past 10 years.

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