Innovative RTI library at Pune waits for being updated
12 Jan, 2014In order to facilitate Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had started an RTI library in 2010. The aim was to make available latest documents on all civic proposals, decisions, orders and reports of PMC on various issues so that the citizens could have easy access and there would be fewer RTI applications. However, within three years of its establishment, the library seems to have lost its significance and there are hardly two to three visitors every day as indicated by the library register.
The activists alleged that the library fetched poor response because of the failure of the civic administration to update it on regular basis. The activists said that as the documents in the library are old and little use to the public, the citizens have still to file RTI applications with respective departments in order to get information.
Though the in-charge of the RTI library claimed that the library has been updated on regular basis, the list of documents in the library shows that the last update was done on October 22, 2012, and before that on December 22, 2011. The municipal corporation has not allocated any budgetary provisions for the library in 2013-14. Earlier it spent Rs. 6,48,930 in 2010-11 and Rs. 50,000 in 2012-13 on the library.