RTI Rules amended in Bihar

Ignoring the repeated appeals by civil society and right to information activists, the State government amended some provisions of the Bihar Right to Information Rule, 2006 framed by the state government under section 28 of RTI Act. Notification to this effect has been issued a couple of days ago amending rule – 5 schedule- I of the Rule. The amendment has made the application under RTI Act, 2005 costlier, because now the applicants will have to pay Rs/- 10 for each of the application and only one information would be made available in the one application.

Previously the information seekers could seek more than one information in one application for which he had to pay only rupees 10. Now after this amendment, the Public Information Officer would have the discretion to treat contents of the application as more than one information and consequently the applicants would be asked to pay extra money for that.

The provision related to supply of information free of cost to the applicants living below poverty line (BPL) has also been amended and according to new arrangement such applicants cannot be supplied more than 10 pages of information free of cost.  The PIOs as well as SIC have been complaining to the government that the applications under RTI have been draining huge resources both in terms of money and manpower, therefore they argued that such amendments be brought in. The RTI activists on the other hand dubbed this change as anti-people. They argue that now on wards obtaining information from government would become more difficult and costly.