Mangalore, August 6: State Information Commissioner Dr H N Krishna has directed the officials in Dakshina Kannada to provide information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, even if the application is not addressed to the public information officers (PIOs).
Addressing a meeting at Zilla Panchayat Hall, here on Friday Dr Krishna said he had noticed officials rejecting RTI applications on the grounds that PIO's address was not mentioned on it.
"Accept the RTI application even if the applicant fails to mention the address of the PIO," he said adding that an official, who rejects, denies or delays giving the information can be penalised under the provisions of the RTI Act. He was addressing PIOs of various offices in the district at the zilla panchayat hall here on Friday.
In case of voluminous files, an RTI applicant should be allowed to view the file for one hour without being charged a fee. However, Rs 10 should be levied from the applicant for every additional half an hour. Officials should periodically update the list of all files in their offices and classify them according to its nature, he said adding that disposal of RTI application will be made easy if officials list and classify all files in their offices regularly.
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