Long-term damage: Telangana state info panel struggles to clear RTI plea backlog

Time of India

2 days ago

HYDERABAD: The Telangana State Information Commission is struggling to clear a backlog of 17,509 pending appeals and complaints, an accumulation from the two years it functioned without a commissioner.
The absence of leadership stalled the commission's work, delaying citizens' access to critical information across departments.
According to the commission, common appeals include issues related to house and town planning in localities, departmental permissions for housing, land records and ownership queries, as well as information on financial allotments and revenue generation. Many seek information on whether specific schools have fire safety equipment, proposed class wise students strength and fee, sanitary certificate etc.
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Speaking to TOI, information commissioner PV Srinivasa Rao said, "Many applicants submitted repeated appeals and got no replies in the past few years. We are now identifying such cases, grouping them, and passing combined orders to speed things up."
One such case is that of G Srinivas Reddy, who filed multiple appeals seeking information on the financial accountability of department heads across the state govt. When the Public Information Officer responded that the data was too scattered to be compiled and shared, Reddy approached the commission.
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After a delay of over two years, the commission issued a directive that the RTI request must be answered regardless of how dispersed the information may be.
Gunashekar K, a resident of Khairtabad, told TOI that he had to file three appeals but still received no response. "I filed an RTI to check whether the land near my house falls under a nearby temple's ownership. But the department did not respond. I eventually had to approach the Information Commission to get things moving," he said.
Chief information commissioner G Chandrasekhar Reddy added, "A major contributor to the problem is the poor response from govt departments. Under the RTI Act, departments are legally required to reply within 30 days, and that is not happening consistently,"
The commission has set a goal to achieve zero pendency across 30 departments in the coming months. By next year, the commission aims to expand this effort to all 22 districts.