Right to Information

State Level RTI: Bihar

Law

In May 2005, the national Right to Information Act 2005 was passed by Parliament. The RTI Act 2005 received Presidential assent on 15 June and came fully into force on 12 October 2005. (For more information on the passage of the RTI Act 2005 and implementation at the national level, click here.) The RTI Act 2005 covers all Central, State and local government bodies and applies to the State Government of Bihar.

The Bihar Government has started implementing the RTI Act 2005. The Bihar Government has issued the Bihar Right to Information Rules, 2006.

The state government of Bihar amended some provisions of the Bihar Right to Information Rule, 2006 framed by the state government under section 28 of RTI Act. This was notified on November 19, 2009 and is called Bihar Right to Information (Amendment) Rules, 2009. 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. This amendment has made the rules even more anti- poor wherein the applicant will have to shell out extra money. Apart from this the information is limited to just 150 words per page, and they have also introduced a format for filing an application. Hence CHRI in collaboration with its external Collaborator Mr. Ajay Balajee critiqued and suggested recommendations on (Bihar Right to Information (Amendment) Rules, 2009 in order to appeal to State Government of Bihar to further amend the provisions of the rules and bring it in tune with the Central right to Information Act. You can read the Hindi version of the critique here.

Details of Fee & Costs

State Information Commission

Newsupdates, Activities & Advocacy

• Bihar won the National Awards for E-Governance 2008-09. Bihar bagged the award for ‘Jankari’, a government-run project to empower people with information under the Right to Information Act (RTI). The information can be accessed over telephone. The National Award will be presented by the central government’s Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances in the Ministry of Personnel, New Delhi jointly with the Department of Information Technology. The award will be presented on February 12, 2009, at the inaugural session of the 12th National Conference on E-Governance 2008-09, in Goa.
  
  Bihar was the first state to initiate the Jankari project, which enabled people living in remote areas of the state to make applications under RTI through the telephone. The operator receiving the call in various call centres would draft the application under RTI and forward it to the department concerned for providing appropriate information to applicants. The Jankari programme also enabled one to file the first appeal and the second appeal before the Appellate Authority and the State Information Commission through the telephone if the information sought was not provided to the applicants. During the two years it had been in force, the call centre received 22,600 calls, of which 7,070 were for submitting applications under RTI, 3,016 were for filing the first appeal and 1,400 were for filing the second appeal before the State Information Commission. The Bihar government made a PowerPoint presentation of the Jankari Project in Delhi on January 19, 2009, before a jury, which appreciated the state government’s efforts. (2 February 2009)
  
• Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) leader Prem Chandra Mishra has filed a PIL in the Patna High Court to direct the Bihar Government to properly implement the RTI Act 2005 in the State.

Resources & Articles

Government

• Right to Information Act 2005. (English)
• Right to Information Act 2005. (Hindi)
• Bihar Right to Information Rules, 2006.
• Bihar Right to Information (Amendment) Rules, 2009
  

CHRI

• CHRI (2005) Forwarding Information Requests and Appeals: A Step by Step Guide for Assistant Public Information Officers under the Right to Information Act 2005, prepared by Mr Venkatesh Nayak.
• CHRI (2005) Processing Information Requests: A Step by Step Guide for Assistant Public Information Officers under the Right to Information Act 2005, prepared by Mr Venkatesh Nayak.

Miscellaneous

• Rajesh Chaubey (2005) Right to Information Act - Babus are Nervous, 17 October, PatnaDaily.com.

Links

• Government of Bihar
• Government of India (DOPT)
• National Campaign on People's Right to Information (NCPRI)
• Right to Information - Collection of RTI stories, articles, etc.
• Info Change - Right to Information Pages
• India Together - Right to Information Pages