By Binay Singh/TNN:

Jaunpur: Project Jaankari, a right to information and e-governance initiative was launched here on Saturday. With this, Jaunpur perhaps has become the first district in the state to empower the common masses with the most powerful and effective democratic tool —the Right to Information Act.

Centre’s chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah on Saturday clicked the portal at a seminar on “Right to Information: Present scenario and future possibilities”, organised at the VBS Purvanchal University. Appreciating the efforts of the district administration, particularly district magistrate Anurag Yadav, Habibullah said that it had been specified in the sections 4-1c and 4-1d of the RTI Act that not only the facts and policies of the government but also the administrative decisions should be put on the website to pass on the information to the common people. “It would empower both the government and the citizens to strengthen the democracy,” Habibullah added.

“Project Jaankari is a unique e-governance initiative related to information technology usage for RTI facilitation,” said the district magistrate adding, “as the RTI Act empowers every citizen to demand information and accountability from the government, its successful and judicious implementation would usher the development at a improved pace.” “It is an effort towards eliminating the bottlenecks in the implementation of the RTI Act through a bi-lingual website available at http://jaunpur.nic.in. Through this site, the people would know about the PIOs and APIOs to whom they could approach for information.

Besides, the available services on the website include registration, disposal and monitoring of the request for information. The people could also secure required information and know the status of the appeals,” he added. Project Jaankari would benefit not only the people with easy availability of information, but would also sensitise the officers and staff of different departments on the RTI Act.

According to Yadav, it has been planned to develop a searchable databank related to information already provided in order to reduce the effort of compiling similar information time and again.

Yadav said future initiatives would include linking of Hindi IVRS (interactive voice response system) technologies to the project to provide information through phones and mobiles, providing status of appeals and appeal hearing schedule through SMS, Geographical Information System (GIS) linkage with the project to provide intuitive information to the people, and networking of Collectorate, Vikas Bhawan, tehsil, block offices etc