Bengaluru: To deal with the rising number of cases, the Karnataka Information Commission is contemplating holding Right To Information (RTI) adalats across the city from next month.
Currently, 30,000 cases are pending before the authority, which is struggling with reduced staff strength.
“We receive close to 800 to 1,000 appeals a month and each Commissioner has to deal with 30 cases a day. We have four Commissioners and one Chief Commissioner when the sanctioned strength is seven,” L. Krishnamurthy, KIC Commissioner (RTI), said while addressing members of FKCCI on Saturday.
On the nature of pending cases, Mr. Krishnamurthy told The Hindu , “The maximum cases pertain to RTI applications filed with the BBMP and BDA. We are thinking of a zonal approach to the problem where we will hold adalats and deal with as many cases as possible.”
He said that instructions on holding the adalats had been issued and the time and venue was yet to be fixed.
Mr. Krishnamurthy said that of the complaints related to RTI applications filed with the BBMP, around 99 per cent pertained to building violations. “Some people, who misuse the Act, file around 1,000 cases. As a result, applicants from rural areas with one or two applications are not able to get a hearing. Sometimes, it takes around nine months for the appeal to reach us in some individual cases,” he said.
Mr. Krishnamurthy said that the Commission receives complaints about departments that do not upload files available under the RTI Act on their websites. “If we receive such complaints, we can direct the authorities to upload the information,” he said.