How to seek information through RTI?
We assume that you already know what RTI is and have gone through our previous post explaining it. If you have not, you can go through it by clicking here.
Now, before you start to seek information, you need to know what the RTI process is.

RTI Process
Under RTI Act -2005, every Government department is required to designate one of its existing officers as Public Information Officers (PIO).
The role of this all important officer is to:
# Accept your application for information.
# Gather information sought by you from various wings of that department.
# Provide the information to you.
In many departments, PIO's are also assisted by Assistant PIO's (APIO). Their job is only to accept applications from the public and forward it to the right PIO. Thus, you can submit your application to either a PIO directly or through an APIO.

After you submit your application, the information should be furnished to you within following time limit:
# Within 30 days if you had submitted the application to the PIO directly.
# Within 35 days if you had submitted the application to the PIO through an APIO.
On top of it, if the information sought by you affects your life and liberty, information has to be made available to you within 48 hours.

How PIO is made accountable through this process:
# If the concerned PIO or APIO refuses to accept your application form, the Information Commissioner has the power to impose a penalty of Rs 25000 on the concerned officer (PIO/APIO) who refused to accept your application.

# If the concerned PIO does not provide the information in time (i.e. 30days/35 days/48 hours as given above), a penalty of Rs 250 per day of delay can be imposed by the Information Commissioner.

# If the information provided is false or incomplete, a penalty of a maximum of Rs 25000 can be imposed.
All this fines are deducted from the officer’s personal salary.

As you can see above RTI process is foolproof – it makes a PIO accountable. The PIO is compelled to act and within definite time limits. In case he does not fulfills his responsibilities, you are at liberty to report the matter to the Information Commissioner. Hence you can expect fast results.

Armed with above knowledge, let us see what steps you should take follow while filing an application under RTI:
Step 1: Finding where to submit your application form seeking information.
Step 2: Write the application.
Step 3: Submit the application along with the fee.

Let’s go step by step for doing this.

Step1: Finding where to submit your application:
It is easy if your target department is a Central Government department.
For all Central Government Departments, 629 post offices have been designated as APIOs. Thus you can go to any of these post offices and submit your fee and application at the RTI counter in these post offices. They will issue you a receipt and acknowledgement and it is the responsibility of that post office to deliver it to the right PIO.
The list of these post offices is given at http://www.indiapost.gov.in/rtimanual16a.html

But if your target department is a State Government department, you have to do some bit of searching before you know where to submit your application. Although ideally you should have found it in the Govt. of India RTI portal: http://www.rti.gov.in/, not all states have updated the list of PIO/APIO of the state Govt. departments.

But do not lose hope yet. In case you have problems locating your PIO/APIO of any department, you can address your RTI application to “The PIO, C/o Head of Department” and send it to the concerned public authority with the requisite application fee. The Head of Department will have to forward your application to the concerned PIO.

Step 2: Writing the application:
You can write your application in a normal sheet of paper, just like any other ordinary application.

Step 3: Submitting the application along with the fee:
Along with the application, you need to pay a small sum as "Application Fee".
For any Central Government Departments, this amount is Rs 10.
However for state Government Departments, different states have prescribed different fee. Generally it is around Rs. 10 only.
You can deposit fee this fee in cash or through a DD or bankers cheque or postal order drawn in favor of that PIO. In some states, you can buy court fee stamps and affix it on your application. This would be treated as if you have deposited the fee.

You can then submit your application either by post or by hand. But in both cases, remember to keep proof of submission of the application, so that same can be used for any anomalies in future.

Further to submitting your application, when the information is handed over to you, you have to pay Rs 2 per page of information provided for Central Government Departments. It is different for different states. Similarly, there is a fee for inspection of documents. There is no fee for first hour of inspection, but after that, you have to pay Rs. 5 for every subsequent hour or fraction thereof. This is according to Central Rules. For each state, the state rule varies.

Have we been able to make you confident of filing an RTI application?
If the your answer to this question is "YES", we would feel we have inched closer to reaching our objective.
For your any further query, we would be happy to answer. You can contact us at emaillfr@gmail.com. We would also be happy if you post your comments on this topic below.