Dear Comrades,
Indians living abroad, especially those in the US have
welcomed the launch of the electronic postal order, which they say would
go a long way for them seeking information from the Indian Government
and other state governments under the Right to Information Act.
A
number of Indians living in the US said that RTI has now become
accessible to the Indian citizens living abroad after the Postal
Department last week launched Indian postal order in electronic format
(eIPO).
“With eIPO, I now have the ability to discern
conflicting information about governance in India in the news by going
directly to the source — the Government,” Vishal Kudchadkar, a volunteer
with the non-profit Association for India’s Development (AID) at Los
Angeles, told PTI.
“In the last seven years, we have
tried all possible workarounds to exercise our right to know. Now, our
participation in nation building has become tad easier!” he said.
For
the past several years, the volunteers of AID have been running from
pillar to post both at the Indian missions in the US and with government
agencies back home seeking information under RTI.
However, the inability to pay in Indian currency from overseas was a major hindrance in their move.
“It
has been seven long years since we started this campaign for our right
to information. It has been a difficult journey and during this time we
have had to depend on friends in India to file RTIs on our behalf,” said
Arun Gopalan, a volunteer with Association for India’s Development,
Greater Washington Metro area chapter.
“Their
non-availability meant a missed opportunity. That will no longer be the
case with this new eIPO. It would be ideal if the list of email id of
PIOs is also available on this portal and the information exchange is
completely digitised, but we will take this for now,” Gopalan said.
Balaji
Janakiraman Iyer said the launch of eIPO would make the Right to
Information more accessible to all Indian citizens living abroad.
“Couple
of years ago, I had lamented that the implementation of the RTI Act
made an NRI like me feel like a second class citizen because of
something as trivial as the lack of a facility to make the payment for
the RTI filing fee,” he said.
“Thanks to the tireless
efforts of RTI activists in India and abroad as well as the willing
support of government officials, with the launch of the eIPO, we have
finally enabled Indian citizens abroad to exercise their right to
information on an equal footing to that of resident Indians.
“While
the convenience factor is obvious, the more far reaching impact would
be the sense of empowerment NRIs are going to feel in nation building,”
Iyer told PTI.
thehindubusinessline.com