The Government has taken steps to redress the difficulty encountered by the Indian diaspora while applying under the RTI Act seeking information on issues of interest. Now an applicant can pay the fee in the form of e-IPO (Electronic Indian Postal Order) as against physical IPOs. Earlier, it was hard for Indians settled abroad to get an IPO or a demand draft of Rs. 10.
With the new scheme launched by the Ministry of Personnel, e-IPOs can be bought with either debit or credit cards.
The process works thus: when an applicant buys e-IPO via credit or debit car physical postal order is not generated, only a number is generated which is to be mentioned on the application by the applicant. Then, the applicant is to send the application to appropriate authorities.
The data provided by the applicant is matched with those on the Department of Posts (DoP) website and once the transaction details tally, fee is accepted. Money is not received physically by the PIO but is transferred to a consolidated fund of India. It is akin to payments received by the DoP in the scheme of CAPIO.
Officials to deal with e-RTI applications are to be trained and appointed by all ministries and departments as per the directive of the ministry.
This service along with RTI application will be applicable to Central Public authorities.
Source: Business Standard