Online RTI portal slower than snail mail, fume activists

CHENNAI: After the state government included six more secretariat departments to receive petitions under RTI online portal in February this year, activist Dayanand Krishnan said he had filed an online RTI petition with the Municipal Administration and Water Supply department to get information on the Chitlapakkam water supply scheme on February 23 but is yet to receive any reply.

“It is shocking to see that the online petition filed on February 23 was received by the MAWS department on March 8. It shows that though the portal is online, it is very slower than the usual registered post method,” he said, adding the petition was forwarded through post by the Public Information Officer (PIO), Under Secretary to the state government to PIO Tambaram Corporation on March 16 and he received the copy of the letter sent through registered post on April 7.

He said unlike the RTI portal of the Centre, the state portal operation was not completely digital. “If any RTI petition is filed in the central portal, it will be forwarded to the department PIOs concerned through email within days. The replies will be received at the earliest. But the RTI petition filed in the state portal is not reaching the department PIO concerned straight away,” he said, adding if the State government continues to forward the RTI petitions through posts, it would be a huge waste of public money.