New Delhi: The Central Information Commission
on Tuesday launched its new disabled friendly dedicated website for
lodging complaints and appeals.
The new website 'www.rti.india.gov.in' has been designed
in such a way by National Informatics Centre that even the
visually challenged can hear the instructions and details on
the portal through speakers in their computers.
"With the help of screen reader, any visually challenged
person can go through the entire web site. The system will
prompt them to file the details and read out the instructions
to them. It has been designed keeping the latest international
guidelines for such web portals," Neeta Verma, Senior
Technical Director with NIC said.
The new website was the need of hour as it was difficult
to find relevant information on the present website of Central
Information Commission.
The new web page will help any applicant to file the
complaint and second appeals online along with all the
attachments in digital form. The system will work in tandem
with the manual one where RTI applicants send their complaints
and appeal through postal mails.
"This is a small but significant step to make the system
paperless, efficient and ensure seamless flow of information,"
Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah said.
The website will help the citizens to file their complaints
in one go or save it in draft mode. Once the final draft is
submitted, the applicant will have to take a print out of his
application and send a signed copy to the Commission through
postal mail.
The relevant documents will need to be converted in digital
form and sent along with the application.
"As per the RTI Act, signatures of applicants are necessary
before starting proceedings. So a person will have to sign
just the two page printout of application which will be
automatically generated at the time of submitting it," Pankaj
Parashar Joint Registrar CIC said.
Once the application is submitted a unique identity number
will be generated which will be used for all future
correspondence. People can know the status of their appeals on
this site using the number.
To ensure that, NIC has incorporated a 12-step process and
at each step flow of application will be automatically updated
and provided to the user.
Another feature added in the new website is the Hindi
version which was absent in the CIC web page till now. The
entire information about the procedures, requirements and mode
to file the application are available in Hindi. However, the
previous decisions of the Commission are still in English.
"We expect more applications from people in Hindi speaking
areas," Habibullah said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, September 08, 2009, 21:30