HYDERABAD: A woman wanted to know why she was not given relief under the Apathbandhu scheme, while a few others sought names and addresses of lecturers who did revaluation of their answer papers. Another person asked why his son was not given a job on compassionate grounds.

These and hundreds of similar requests received by officials dealing with the Right to Information Act reflected the lack of awareness among people about the utility of the statute which was notified on June 15 last year.

Almost 70 per cent of the applications received all over the State under the Act concerned service matters and individual grievances, Information Commissioners - R. Dileep Reddy and A. Subba Rao - told The Hindu here on Wednesday.

The maximum number of requests related to Education and Municipal departments, while the least pertained to the Police Department. "This is being considered as a grievances redress cell," Mr. Reddy observed.

Instance in Vizianagaram

In another instance in Vizianagaram town, a house-owner was peeved at knowing that there was a difference of Rs.20 in the property tax levied on him and his neighbour.

He promptly filed an application with the Municipal Commissioner seeking details of the tax being collected for each of the 600 houses in the colony.

Pointing out that a lot more awareness needed to be created among people as also officials, he said that a letter written by a retired IAS officer to the Secretary, R and B, was returned without even being opened.

After he wrote to the State Information Commission, the official was asked to furnish relevant information within 15 days.

The commission so far received 583 petitions/complaints/appeals. Of them, 312 were disposed of and orders were passed in 40 cases. In 11 others, it issued notices summoning officials and the aggrieved.

Interestingly, 174 of the 213 pending cases related to a single individual who sent applications to almost all departments, TTD and AP Bhavan seeking information on a variety of matters, including phone bills. A high-level meeting would be held on June 5 to review the implementation of the Act.

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