Govt rejects petition to amend RTI Act
The state government has rejected the demand of Right to Information Act activists to incorporate postal orders as one of the modes of payment of application fee and further fee under the RTI.
Citing difficulty in the present prescribed modes of payment such as cash, DD, cheque and money order, the activists had petitioned the government seeking amendment to the Act to incorporate postal orders as a mode of payment.
“Most public information officers are not authorised to receive cash in their office. Hence the applicants are made to run from pillar to post for making the payment at some other designated place, where they demand an authorisation to receive the fee,” C. Selvaraj, president, Association of Transparency and Anti Corruption, said in a petition to the Governor of Tamil Nadu.
He also complained that bank officials are reluctant to prepare the DD because of the lengthy account head, which is difficult to accommodate in the available space.
“We propose to bring in an amendment in the RTI rules incorporating the postal order also towards application fee as well as for the further fee, as it is available in all the post offices in rural areas,” he said.
In reply, Mr M. Kannan, deputy secretary of P and AR department, in a letter dated Feb. 6, said, “For encashing Indian Postal Order, staff has to go to post office daily. Further, the said encashed amount has to be remitted in the state government account. It will involve double work — encashment of postal order and payment of amount in the government account. It will increase the workload which will cause delay in giving the information.”
He also pointed out that inclusion of money order as one of the modes of payment of fee to get the information.
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