RTI is FOI of india. a funny story in "hindu"

India has RTI( right to information act of 2005) similar to FOI( freedom of information act in US)
Purpose of these acts is to have an open government. Hope is that an open government would be better government and it has removed secrecy in the system and people are starting to see some benefits at the fringes. One benefit is immediate that most officials know that their actions cannot be secret any more on the grounds of some privilege.

One Mr M.K.Haridas of The Proper Channel petitioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) for information on the sum accrued by the government by way of forfeited security deposits of candidates in the 2004 and 2009 general elections.
As no national data was available ECI forwarded the request to all the states and union territories as per the RTI act rules.
They, in turn, forwarded it to district administrations from where it was dutifully passed on to tehsil(sub district) headquarters. Each office took religious care to acknowledge Mr. Haridas’ application and he has received over 150 replies from various States to date, many of them in local unfamiliar languages. RS 3500(About dollars 70) have been spent on mailing so far. Some of the data is in local languages and he has not been able to decipher as India has 26 official languages and 14 or so scripts.
One letter used Rs 35 stamp to ask him to deposit Rs 2 by demand notice in the treasury of the state for the info.
Other one demanded RS 1680 for 14 hours put in by its staff at average rate of Rs 120 per hour. It also gave the breakdown how the rate was calculated.

RTI and FOI are such a fun animals. Congratulations to the all the officials trying to give the information and Mr Haridas for making such an enquiry .It is worth it for just fun sake.