Children - Terre des Hommes

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Conclusions
The RTI Act is intended to facilitate affected citizens or
those individuals or institutions working in public interest
to access information available in government offices.
However, to use this tool is a journey through frustration
in most instances as the desire to share public information
is largely absent in the government offices. The various
bottlenecks, procedures and rules that have been created in
the state acts which are different from the central act and the
lack of correct information even in the websites of various
departments’ present confusion on application procedures.
The applications are rejected for the most trivial omissions
and errors with regard to procedures and rules which imply
that frustrating the applicant and thereby discouraging use
of the Act is the general response from government bodies.
Unless information put up on the websites and available at
government offices is accurate, updated and easy to access,
the RTI Act will become redundant. Therefore, proper
information on the RTI Act itself is required. Discrepancies
in rules and procedures between departments and states
have to be removed to reduce confusion over the Act. The
information received so far, especially with regard to child
labour, shows that the information available in the government
and the process of reporting within the government have
to be reviewed considering the high variance in primary
data and data provided by government departments, with
respect to child labour and school drop-out rates. Some
of the information we have sought, with respect to water,
agriculture, cropping patterns, etc., are clearly not available
with the concerned departments or not available in a format
where empirical conclusions and understanding can be drawn
from such data. It is particularly important for government
departments as stakeholders whose resources and services
are impacted by mining activities, to have such authentic
data and understand the trends in water, pollution, energy
and health problems, in the absence of which companies have
denied any problems being associated with their activities.