How to Draft RTI Application

For every government department office should have someone in them who is designated as the Public Information Officer ( PIO ). The PIO will be responsible for receiving and processing applications. Once you identify the governament office, send the information addressing "Ex:- To the Public Information Officer, Office of The Municipal Corporation / Office Name, Address ".  If you do not know the office address, send the same to higher office. Ex:- To district collector's office. 

A citizen who desires to seek some information from a public authority is required to send, along with the application, a demand draft or a bankers cheque or an Indian Postal Order of Rs. 10/- (Rupees ten), payable to the Accounts Officer of the public authority as fee prescribed for seeking information. We strongly recommend Indian Postal Orders/ E-IPO as it does not have any additional charges and you can purchase in-advance. Many of the times, if the information requires multiple pages, you have to provide additional fees as prescribed under RTI Act. The applicant may also be required to pay further fee towards the cost of providing the information, details of which shall be intimated to the applicant by the CPIO as prescribed by the RTI ACT. Charges for Copying / Creating: For A4 or A3 size paper ₹2.00 per page and for Larger size paper Actual charge or cost price of a copy in larger size paper. For inspection of records, a fee of ₹.5.00 for each subsequent hour. For Information in Diskette or floppy, ₹50.00 per diskette. 

Now You identified the department name, postal address and got a postal order for fees payment.  The most crucial part is to ask the right information request so that our end goal is to provide a real utility for the requested information. The key to any RTI application depends on how effective and precious the RTI application and avoid the common mistakes while drafting your application. 

1.  Always write your application in the language in which you wish to receive a reply. If you want the PIO to reply to you in Telugu, make sure you write your application in Telugu. As a precautionary measure, It is always advisable to mention in your application clearly the language in which you seek a reply.

2. Subject Matter in RTI  Request :  In this part of your application, you must mention the kind of records you are seeking for, such as office records copies, file notes, attendance data, tender documents, quality certification documents, roster records, communication, documents etc.  If it is for a particular employee, then mention about whose records you are seeking, for example– Duty doctor Mr Srinivas M.B.B.S information, Cleaning staff attendance data etc. The most crucial part is you should know exactly what to ask otherwise PIO might give irrelavant info. 

Example 1:  RTI Application by Mr Srinivas, L.L.B, High Court Advocate to Community Health Centre, Vijayawada - for doctor’s duty roster (call doctor), leaves, on duty particulars and attendance/deviation particulars for January-2023 regarding.

Example 2: RTI Request for Inspection of Records and get certified copies during records inspection – for the records of Mr Rajesh, M.B.B.S , Duty doctor from 1st January-2023 to 30th October -2023 @ Government hospital, Vijayawada. 

Example 3: Request u/s 6(1) RTI Act 2005 for the municipal roster - street cleaning and sanitization records from 1st January-2023 to 31st November-2023 @ 16th  Ward, Vijayawada Municipal Corporation.
 

3. Type of Information Request. Always make a shopping list of information request questions.

 Ex:- You can ask tender documents for a specific road, quality certification records for the road. 

4. You should not ask questions like why a road is in bad condition. Always remember one thing. PIO should only provide the information what is available in the office. He should not create and provide the information to you. Get the information first and later user it to complain to higher authorities. Always remember, when you write RTI applications, your primary focus should be to get the information from the Public Authority.

5. In the information request, give the details of the documents that you requested very clearly. This way, PIO knows exactly what to search and provide. Lot of times, lawyer alone might not know the list of records maintained at an office. This needs help of a retired or working government employee or relevant subject matter expert from that department to ask right records to expose corruption or for your legal case supporting documents. This is important for revenue, tax related issues, medical records etc. You can approach JUST-RTI Team for consultation. 

6. Keep your RTI application short and simple. Break your information request as a digestible processing, simple and direct language. If it is like a story, then PIO might not answer to your points.  

Example 1: Please provide with certified copies of all documents and contracts related to the construction of government hospital, vijayawada between 2021 to 2023.   

Example 2: Pharmacy In – Stock In and Out Stock ledger registers, dispense reports from 1st Jan-2022 to today. 

Example 3: Provide the list of vendors, products, quantity supplied to government hospital between Jan-2022 to today. 

Example 4: Provide the annual maintenance contract details signed in 2022 for medical equipment supplied to Governament Hopsital for cathlab @ King George Hospital. 

7. The RTI applications are not answered properly many times due to the application is incomplete or vague and it does not have important details of the information or documents sought. If you are asking medical records information, you need expert opinion from medical department. For Road Related Works, you need expert help to draft from a civil engineer. For Municipal Water Department, need to know the municipal act or the procedures followed daily in municipal department. Therefore, you should always give important details such as time period, record name, job charts, location, the period for which information is sought and the name of the project etc.

8. Do not ask reasons ( Ex why my street is not cleaned for 2 months) . Control your emotion and ask "Provide the cleaning roster log book for 16th ward , Vijayawada and the corresponding duty certificate for the month of January-2023 ".   Always make your request straight and information request only. 

9. To make your application simple, always know about the department functions, job charts, duties. By knowing this, you can ask simple and straightforward questions . This adds authoritative tone to your information request. Know the procedures to be followed by the respective department before a contract is awarded.  Know about how the budget is allocated in the department for various activities. 

10. Many of the times, lawyers alone might not be able to get the information as they are not aware of various departments and procedures followed in each department. Due to this, Just RTI created the platform with a combination of legal, domain subject matter experts and journalists.  

11. The key to success to ask the right questions, records verification to get right info from right place through proper channel.

If you need any help, just partner with "JUST RTI" to solve many day to day issues in dealing with government. Just fill the form and wait for the relevant subject matter expert along with our legal experts to contact you. Together our goal is to solve your issues with government as a team.