Monday, March 28, 2011

RTI applicants number crossed 1L mark in 2010

TNN; Mar 28, 2011,
HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh Information Commission (APIC) received more than one lakh Right to Information ( RTI) applications from the state in the year 2010, according to a release issued by the department recently.
Quoting figures from its fifth annual report (for 2010), tabled before the chief minister last week, officials of the commission said that the 1.01 lakh (approx) applications received by it in 2010 was a whopping 1,044 per cent more than the number of cases it had received in 2006, when it first started functioning. The annual figure then was just about 8,864.
"This increase has largely been due to the awareness created by the media and also the efforts made by various civil society organisations as well as the various awareness programmes taken up by the AP Information Commission and government agencies through inspections, reviews and tours of the commission," the release said.
Interestingly, the report shows that the number of appeals and complaints from the rural areas in 2010 shot to 43 per cent as against a mere 11 per cent in 2006. The figures from the urban areas, however, dropped to 57 per cent from as much as 89 per cent. The most number of applications were received from the Hyderabad district (1,171) followed by Nellore district (518).
Further, the release stated that the commission disposed of 90 per cent of the total number of applications received in 2010, with information being furnished in as many as 98,125 cases.