Sunday, September 18, 2011

Nature in Camera

Right To Service Act Implemented In Bihar

Right To Service Act
Right to Service Acts 2011 (Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly (through the public sector/Govt. Sector) or by financing private provision of services.)


Governor of Bihar has approved the Right to Service Act. This act is first of its kind in India, which is expected curb corrupt practices in the State Government.

The services demanded by the people from government offices across the state that have been considered in the proposed Act include the issue of licences (days for driving licence, shop-opening licences, etc), certificates (caste, birth and death, residence, income, vehicle fitness, oldage pension), and police verification reports needed for passports, arms licences and joining government jobs.The Act makes it mandatory for officials to release driving licences and those for opening PDS shops and fertiliser shops in 30 days. Certificates for caste, residence, income, etc have to be issued in 15 days while 10 days have been given for the issue of vehicle fitness certificates. Police verification reports, a most vexing problem for ordinary people, have to be released in a week. Post-mortem reports have to be issued in just three days.

Most importantly, officials failing to keep the stipulated deadline in rendering these services would be fined at the rate of `250 per day up to the highest sum of `5,000, which would be deducted from their salaries and such officials would face departmental action.

Services, which come under this Act in Bihar State, are following :

Certificate and Report Works


Caste Certificate BDO 15 days

Domicile (Residence Certificate) BDO 15 days

Income Certificate BDO 15 days

New Ration Card SDO 60 days

Post-mortem Report Concerned Doctor 3 days

Old Age Pension BDO 21 days



License Works


Public Distribution Shop

(Ration Shop) SDO 30 days



Fertilizer Shop District Agriculture Officer 30 days

Seed Shop Division Agriculture Officer 30 days

Pulse/ Flour Mill Chief Industrial Officer 30 days

Brick Klin District Mining Officer 30 days

Aara Machine Forest Officer (Commissionary ) 30 days



Police Verification Works

Passport Police Station In charge/ Inspector 7 days



Arms Licence Police Station In charge/ Inspector 7 days



Appointment Related

Matters Police Station In charge/ Inspector 7 days



Character Certificate Police Station In charge/ Inspector 7 days



Electricity

L T Connection Executive Engineer 30 days

Wrong Billing Assistant Engineer 24 hours

Fuse Repair (Town) Assistant Engineer 4 hours

Fuse Repair (Rural) Assistant Engineer 1 day

Break Down (Town) Assistant Engineer 6 hours

Break Down (Rural) Assistant Engineer 36 hours



Transport Related Works

Driving License DTO 30 days

Smart Card Conversion

of License DTO 7 days

International Driving License DTO 7 days

Vehicle Registration DTO 7 days

Tax Relaxation DTO 30 days

Fitness Certificate DTO 10 days



Bihar is poised to blaze a new trail in the Nation when it thinks of Bringing the Right to Service Act by the 15th of August 2011. The services under the ambit of the Right to Service act include issue of caste, domicile and income certificates, driving licenses and vehicle registration, police verification of passport applications, issue of new ration cards and social security pensions. Applications for these services will have to be disposed of in 21 to 60 days, depending on the service.

The procedure for appealing through this law have not been disclosed fully yet… any information is not available yet regarding this…… will update those information when it will be available.



For the some other detail regarding RTI and RTS please contact to the following officers



List of Public Information Officer & Asstt. Information Officers (Directorate of Industries & District Industries Centres)



Public Information Officer/ Tel./Mobile No. Assistant Information Officer Tel./Mobile No.



1 Araria Sri Dhanesh Kumar, GM 993173860 Sri Ramesh Sharma, IEO 9431078847



2 Arwal Sri Sukhdeo Prasad, GM 9431354760 Sri Satish Kumar, IEO 9931440929



3 Aurangabad Sri Ramchandra Singh, GM 06186-222577 Sri Binod Singh, IEO 9934684079



4 Banka Sri Madan Prasad Singh, GM 9934007174 Sri Shyam Bihari Gupta, FM 934217114



5 Begusarai Sri I.B.Choudhary, GM 06143-2125055/9430418908 Sri Krishna Prakash Sharma, IEO

9431694088



6 Bhagalpur Sri Suresh Chandra Mishra, FM 0641-2400543 Sri Rama Kant Sharma, IEO



7 Bhojpur Sri Sripati Singh, GM 06182-239139/9431052881 Sri R.K.Upadhyay, FM 9431497921



8 Buxar Sri Mundrika Pd. Choudhary, GM 9430468635 Sri Bisheshwar Prasad, IEO



9 Darbhanga Sri Vimal Kumar, GM 06272-222387/9234873494 Sri Binod Shankar Singh, IEO 9835085/865



10 E.Champaran Sri Bal Gangadhar Choudhary,FM 06252-232509 Sri Bhola Paswan, IEO 943145531



11 Gaya Sri S.S.Sharma, GM 0631-2220754/9835411987 Sri Akhilesh Kumar, EI 9835072954



12 Gopalganj Sri Mahendra Choudhary, GM 06156-224637 Sri Dilip Kr. Mandal , IEO



13 Jehanabad Sri Ramchandra Singh, GM 06114-223177/9835271152 Sri Girindra Kumar, FM



14 Jamui Sri Bindeshwar Mochi, GM 9334930635 Sri Manoj Verma, IEO



15 Kaimur Sri Surya Narayan Ram, GM 9430846751 Sri Kamlesh Pd. Singh, IEO 9431447717



16 Katihar Sri Rampreet Ram, GM 06542-248120/9934724425 Sri Navin Kumar Singh, IEO



17 Khagaria Sri Ramanand Sharma, FM 06244-222362/934836277 Sri Kirti Narayan Giri, FM 9431788813

How To File R.T.I. Application. Please Read Carefully.

RTI How to get information



Any citizen of India who desires to obtain any information under the Right to Information Act, 2005 may make a request to the Public Information Officer/Assistant Public Information Officer, preferably in the application format, in writing or through electronic means.





Keep three things in Mind,

1) Attach a court fee stamp of rs.10/- with every RTI application. In case of filing RTI in a central govt office, attach a postal order of Rs.10/- instead of court fee stamp. This fee is exempted for below poverty level people. But for that you have to attach BPL certificate.



2) It is necessary to have an extra copy of the application on which the public information officer will give you stamp of his dept and write 'copy received'. this will a proof of application filed.



3) Public Information Officer (PIO) is supposed to give the demanded information within 30 calender days.

You can file an appeal to his senior Information officer if information is not received in 30 days/ information received is incorrect or partial. Do not forget to mention in the appeal to fine the PIO. Law prescribes Rs. 250/- per day fine for the PIO if the information is not received within the prescribed time.





APPLICATION FORMAT FOR INFORMATION UNDER RTI ACT 2005 To The Public Information Officer/ Asstt. Public Information Officer



Application under RTI Act 2005



* Name of the applicant:



* Address of the Applicant:



* Subject of Information:



* Details of Information: ( please enclose separate sheet, if required, indicating specific details of information required and the preferred medium i.e. inspection, photocopy, softcopy, etc. This includes specific details like duration of information is required etc.)



* Applicant is from below poverty line: Yes/ No



* Send information by post/ register post/ I'll collect the information by hand.



DECLARATION I state that the information sought does not fall within the restriction contained in Section 8 & 9 of the RTI Act and to the best of my knowledge it pertains to your office.



Place:_________

Date :___________





Signature of the applicant.



Some guidelines :

While filing an RTI application, the framing of the questions is very important. A slight misunderstanding or vague questions gives the Public Information Officer a chance to reject your application. Follow these guidelines:

* Use a white sheet of paper to write an application. There is no need to using Note-sheet, or the Court stamp paper. You can use your letter pad for asking for information.
* The matter can be hand written, or typed. There is no compulsion of typing the content.
* Make sure the application is legible and easy to read.
* There is no restriction on number of pages for asking information.
* There are also no restriction on number of questions that can be asked in one application. However, it is generally advisable to ask restrict one application with limited set of questions and generally related ones.
* Be very specific & ask to the point questions. Don't ask vague questions.
* Ask as many short questions as you like ,but don't ask for voluminous information.
* Ask information always by writing your name and signature, and not by your post, as only citizen have the right to information.
* Do not ask a question containing 'WHY'! For example, questions like why you failed to pass the bill, is liable to be rejected for not covering under RTI Act.
* You can ask for reasons behind a "administrative" or a "quasi-judicial" decision under Section 4(1)(d), especially if you are a "affected person"
* If the information sought is voluminous, it is better to ask it in the form of CD to save on cost.
* Remember that, you do not need to write the reason for asking the information.
* Mention the payment details like BC/DD/IPO number, issuing bank/post office, date, cash receipt details , etc., towards the end of your application

For more details about RTI please do visit :

http://rti.gov.in

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Few sample application forms for RTI :-

1)

Application under RTI Act 2005

* Name of the applicant: ABCD
* Address of the Applicant: ABCDEFGH
* Subject of Information: Details on frequent power cuts in XYZ District, block X
* Details of Information:

Despite the repeated public assurances by the Energy Minister __Name__ that there would be no power cuts this summer, citizens of Block X have been suffering on account of frequent power cuts on a daily basis.

I therefore seek answers to the following questions from Electricity Department:

1. Please provide a date wise list of number of power cuts in Block X, since March 1, 2011 till date. For every power cut, please provide the time and duration of outage and also reason for outage.

2. Please provide reason for frequent power outage between 11 PM and 6 AM in Block X since March 1, 2011.

3. Please give list of steps being taken to avoid power cuts between 6 PM and 6 AM in S11 subdivision.

* Applicant is from below poverty line: No
* Send information by register post

DECLARATION I state that the information sought does not fall within the restriction contained in Section 8 & 9 of the RTI Act and to the best of my knowledge it pertains to your office.

Place:_____XYZ____

Date :_____19/07/2011______





ABCD

Signature of the applicant.



2)

Application under RTI Act 2005



* Name of the applicant: ABCD
* Address of the Applicant: ABCDEFGH
* Subject of Information: MLA Development Fund XYZ District
* Details of Information:

Sir,

1. Please intimate the constituency in which the following address falls:

(Give your address here)

2. Please provide the following details for all the works awarded during the period 01/01/2006 to 31/12/2011 for this whole constituency out of the MLA Constituency Development Fund:

a. Name of work

b. Brief Description of work

c. Amount sanctioned

d. Date of sanction

e. Status of completion

f. Name of agency

g. Date of start

h. Date of completion

i. Rate at which work awarded

j. Amount paid

k. Copy of sketch

l. How was the decision taken to carry out this work?

2. How much money was allotted to him during the current year and how much has been carried over from previous years?

3. Out of the above, projects worth how much money have already been sanctioned?

4. How many projects worth how much money are awaiting sanction?



I am depositing the application fee (Rs.10/-) separately. If you feel that above requested information does not pertain to your department then please follow the provisions of Section 6(3) of the RTI Act, 2005/Also as per the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005 please provide the details (Name and Designation) of the first appellate authority w.r.t to your department with the reply to the above request., where I may if required file my first appeal.



Thanking you,



* Applicant is from below poverty line: No



* Send information by register post

DECLARATION I state that the information sought does not fall within the restriction contained in Section 8 & 9 of the RTI Act and to the best of my knowledge it pertains to your office.



Place:_____XYZ____

Date :_____19/07/2011______





ABCD

Signature of the applicant.







P.S. – Name, Address and other details are subject to change.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



So, friends use this tool effectively to curb corruption. If any of you have got questions regarding filing an application, formatting an application please feel free to ask me.