The Chhattisgarh legislative assembly has decided to charge
Rs. 500 as application fee to acquire information on the secretariat of the Vidhan Sabha under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. This is 50 times more than the application fee of
Rs. 10 that is prescribed or charged in various
government departments across the country.
Details on the attendance of the MLAs, expenses incurred on each MLA per day during the session of the House, the number of foreign tours organised for MLAs, gifts given to legislators and their staff, issues taken up by various committees, their findings and the follow-up action are some of the things that can be acquired through RTI applications.
If the applicant wants to procure documents, an additional fee of Rs. 15 per page will be charged. The fee for all other government departments is just Rs. 2. If applicants want to only go through the documents, they will be charged Rs. 50 for the first hour and Rs. 10 for every 15 minutes after that.
The "negative" move has drawn criticism from activists who feel that a high fee will discourage genuine applicants.
"The assembly should lead by example showing more transparency but this is extremely sad. The state information commission should take suo-motu cognizance in the interest of people," said Prateek Pandey, RTI activist and convener of Chhattisgarh Citizen Initiative.
The state information commission refuses to arbitrate. "We have no authority to comment or intervene on such decisions," Serjius Minj, chief information commissioner, told HT.
Activist Sanjay Thakur criticised the assembly for bringing out the notification. "The move does not facilitate disclosure of information," he said.
Vidhan Sabha secretary Devendra Verma justified the decision. "The assembly functions as information dissemination institution. So why encourage those who just file applications with ulterior motive?" Verma said.