Piqued by the delay in securing information under the Right To Information Act, a group of people, under the aegis of a non-government trust, has come together to set up the country?s first RTI bank in Bangalore.
The group has collected information on about 20 infrastructure and realty projects in the city. Plans are afoot to procure at least 2 lakh records.
?We plan to start digitising the documents in another two months and efforts are on to spread public awareness about the RTI Act,? one of the trustees, Vikram Sinha, said.
Karnataka implemented the Act in 2000 and became the first in the country to appoint information commissioner in 2005. In spite of having an information commissioner, there was inordinate delay in accessing the relevant information. Under the RTI Act, government officials are given anywhere between 30 and 45 days to provide the applicant with the requisite information or they will be penalised.
?However, there have been instances where we had to wait for nearly five months to secure some documents. To avoid penalty for delay, officials initially dispatch inappropriate documents and then prolong the supply of the required data,? Sinha said.
However, Karnataka information commissioner KK Mishra said all information available under the RTI Act might not be accessible through the bank.