Children - Terre des Hommes

OUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE
RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT,
2005
As part of the process of information collection for the current
study, we have tried to access information from various
departments concerned with the problems and development
of children in India. In this process, we made use of the Right
to Information (RTI) Act by filing applications on different
aspects of child rights in the mining context. We briefly
present below our experience and challenges encountered in
utilising this Act.
Some of the areas that we chose to consult with government
for information were:
trafficking, HIV/AIDS, forests and agriculture as
resources of food security, and economic issues of the
family like employment in the mines, wages, safety,
other development programmes like NREGA.
companies for information regarding employment,
rehabilitation, child labour, forests, water and future
expansion plans.
Challenges in the Process of
Application
The RTI Act is intended to be an enabling tool for public
scrutiny and active participation of the public in governance
and vigilance. While the Act has facilitated in accessing
information from government, which was earlier a Herculean
task, using the Act involves several challenges and complex
procedures that frustrate the applicant. Some of these
challenges we encountered were:
Act and the different Acts of state governments.
not given properly in many of the websites. Either there
is no information available or wrong information is
given wherein applications get rejected on grounds that
191
the application is not addressed to the appropriate PIO;
outdated information is available in many websites.
Due to these factors, there are several delays where
applications were rejected on grounds of omissions or
errors and there were several delays in reapplying to the
appropriate persons in charge.
money to provide information.
many websites, or it is not mentioned in the websites or
there are discrepancies between states in procedure for
payment. In some states, some of the departments are
accepting court fees stamps but in some others, demand
drafts and many of our applications were rejected on
these grounds, again leading to delays in reapplying.
We found that in most of the post offices, there are
no acknowledgement forms available and some ad hoc
acknowledgement slips are being used because of which
we could not receive some of the acknowledgements.
the applications are simply directed to another section
of the department or another level. Sometimes we were
asked to apply to some other department for information
as they felt it was not relevant to their department. This
gives the impression that, instead of respecting the Act
in its spirit, there are more attempts made by respective
departments in disqualifying the applications on
trivial grounds rather than making it an enabling Act.
Sometimes state governments have asked us to apply to
the centre and vice-versa.
forwarded instead of giving facts on the status. For
example, the rules for minimum wages, social welfare
benefits, etc., were forwarded to us instead of stating
the actual wages paid or specific benefits provided at
specific sites implying that these broad guidelines are
followed by all companies in their jurisdiction, without
any definite verification from the department whether
such rules were actually implemented.
departments of different states was that there was no
child labour reported, which was an outright denial
that there were any children, sometimes even women,
working in the mines. This shows that there is no
seriousness in reporting cases of child labour.