Opposition parties and information activists have decried the Economic Survey’s call for re-examining the RTI and questioned the rationale behind it.

Part 2 of Chapter 16 of the survey suggests a debate on exemptions to “brainstorming notes, working papers, and draft comments until they form part of the final record”, “service records, transfers, and confidential staff reports”, and “ministerial veto, subject to parliamentary oversight, to guard against disclosures that could unduly constrain governance”.

“The RTI Act was never intended as a tool for idle curiosity, nor as a mechanism to micromanage government from the outside,” it adds.

Congress president and leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, pointed out that 26,000 RTI cases were pending as of last year. He said the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, introduced privacy hurdles and the chief information commissioner’s post was vacant until last month.

“Since 2014, over 100 RTI activists have been murdered, unleashing a climate of terror that punishes truth-seekers and extinguishes dissent. The Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014, passed by the Congress-UPA has not been implemented by the BJP, till date. After killing MGNREGA, is it RTI’s turn to get murdered? “ Kharge posted on X.

Anjali Bhardwaj of RTI watchdog Satark Nagrik Sanghatan pointed out that even former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, under whose regime the RTI was passed, had in 2012 said: “There are concerns about frivolous and vexatious use of the Act in demanding information disclosure which cannot possibly serve any public purpose.”

She told The Telegraph: “Where is the evidence for these claims? Our studies show that less than 1 per cent of RTIs filed are frivolous or vexatious. The majority of applicants are the poor who are asking about their basic rights and entitlements.... Nearly 70 per cent of applications seek information that should have been already provided but was not, as Section 4 of the RTI Act has not been followed properly.”

Bhardwaj said strong exemptions already existed under Sections 8 and 9 of the Act, and they had been used extensively in the last 20 years. “What harm has been caused to justify tinkering with an empowering law?” she said.

Trinamool MP and RTI activist Saket Gokhale echoed Kharge and other Congress leaders’ apprehension that the RTI would be the Narendra Modi government’s next target after the MGNREGA.

“In scores of cases, flawed policy making has been exposed only because file notings, comments, etc, were made available to the public in response to RTI applications.

“There are hundreds of examples such as hiding of PM CARES, denial of data by Election Commission, etc, where the Modi Govt has actively sought to violate the RTI Act,” Gokhale posted on X.

Hyderabad-based RTI and privacy campaigner Srinivas Kodali told this paper: “The Economic Survey is saying that right to information is subject to the State’s convenience. Rights are not dependent on whether the State can implement them or not. The State has been able to supply information for so long, so why raise this now?”