Agartala, February 28 (TIWN): A workshop on RTI was held at Udaipur in Saturday. The workshop was jointly organized by Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India, Sipard and Gomati District Administration. The dignitaries present in the workshop were State Information Commissioner, Shyamalima Banerjee, Additional BDO of Gomati, P.L. Chakma, and Assistant Professors of Sipard, Arpita Chowdhury and Rajiv Malakar.

Briefing the workshop, the State Information Commissioner, Mrs. Banerjee told that Right to Information is the most powerful weapon for the development of common people. All the departments must provide information wherever been applicable by the appellant. It is the only law which the officials are bound to maintain their duty. Other important guests also stressed upon the importance of Right to Information.

The Right to Information Act (RTI) is an Act of the Parliament of India "to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens" and replaces the erstwhile Freedom of information Act, 2002. The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India except Jammu & Kashmir. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen may request information from a "public authority" (a body of Government or "instrumentality of State") which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally. This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June 2005 and came fully into force on 12 October 2005. The first application was given to a Pune police station. Information disclosure in India was restricted by the Official Secrets Act 1923 and various other special laws, which the new RTI Act relaxes. It codifies a fundamental right of citizens.