India enacted the Right to Information Act a decade ago, but not even 1 per cent of the country's population exercises its power under the transparency law. A nationwide study by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative has revealed that only 0.37-0.41 per cent of India's population sought information under the RTI Act in 2014.
As per the first of the annual survey on the number of citizens using their right to know, CHRI found that as a proportion of the electorate, people aged 18 years and above, this percentage works to 0.5-0.6 per cent of the population. Though the absolute number of RTI applications is increasing, the micro trend points to a male-female and rural-urban divide.
The study, which analyses data of different states, revealed that only Chhattisgarh among states captured the urban-rural break-up of RTI applicants. Less than a fifth of the applicants (19.85 per cent) were living in villages in the state. Although Chhattisgarh registered a 21 per cent increase in the number of RTI applications across the state in 2014 over that in the previous year, the proportion of rural applicants went down.
http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Only-0-41-per-cent-of-Indians-seek-information-under-RTI-Act-Study/articleshow/47969285.cms
As per the first of the annual survey on the number of citizens using their right to know, CHRI found that as a proportion of the electorate, people aged 18 years and above, this percentage works to 0.5-0.6 per cent of the population. Though the absolute number of RTI applications is increasing, the micro trend points to a male-female and rural-urban divide.
The study, which analyses data of different states, revealed that only Chhattisgarh among states captured the urban-rural break-up of RTI applicants. Less than a fifth of the applicants (19.85 per cent) were living in villages in the state. Although Chhattisgarh registered a 21 per cent increase in the number of RTI applications across the state in 2014 over that in the previous year, the proportion of rural applicants went down.
http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Only-0-41-per-cent-of-Indians-seek-information-under-RTI-Act-Study/articleshow/47969285.cms
