A tax paying citizen has a right to question authorities about proper expenditure of tax payers’ money. Most of the countries in today’s world have either passed Right to Information Acts or are in the process of passing such laws empowering citizens to question governments, inspect files, take copies of government documents and also to inspect government works. People are using this new Right to hold governments accountable and to check corruption. 

In our country the Right to Information Act, 2005 received assent of the President of India on the 15th June, 2005. Rules for the RTI Act are in the process of being formulated by Tripura State government. The PIO and Asst PIOs for the Police department have been nominated to the State government.

Following a central workshop on the Act organised by the State Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development on 8th September 2005 Tripura Police department, in the spirit of this new Act, is the first department to organise a workshop on RTI Act 2005 and its applications at Police HQrs on 12th September 2005. The workshop was chaired by the DGP, Tripura and attended by all officers of and above the rank of SsP / Commandants in and around Agartala, capital city of Tripura. The workshop was highly successful. The participants interacted with Shri GM Srivastava, IPS, DGP, Tripura and Shri Amitabha Kar, IPS, IGP, Communication & Training who gave a power point presentation on the subject. The participants were extremely eager to know the various facets of this new Act and the responsive role of the police administration in meeting the needs of the citizens. 

We intend to hold another workshop with the proposed PIO and all the Assistant PIOs, shortly