AHMEDABAD: After years of pressure from RTI activists, legal intervention and repeated citizen complaints, the Gujarat government has finally begun linking district and taluka-level offices to the state’s online RTI portal.
This move marks a major shift toward digital access to information and paperless governance.
In a significant administrative development, the Urban Development Department, Home Department, Panchayat Department and Revenue Department have now initiated the exercise of mapping their field-level offices on the state RTI platform.
It comes after years of legal pressure, citizen activism and repeated representations highlighting how ordinary people were being forced into an exhausting and expensive offline RTI process.
According to official details, the mapping of seven municipal corporations, more than 160 municipalities, police commissioner offices, district panchayats and collector offices has already been completed.
The process is now gradually expanding deeper into district and taluka administration. The roots of this digital transparency battle go back nearly a decade.
RTI activist Shailendra Sinh Jadeja had launched a sustained campaign in 2016 demanding a fully functional online RTI system in Gujarat.
The campaign soon entered the legal arena when a Public Interest Litigation was filed before the Gujarat High Court in 2018, pushing the state government to act.
The legal and public pressure eventually led to the launch of the online RTI portal www.onlinerti.gujarat.gov.in by the Chief Minister in December 2021.
However, despite the launch being projected as a major transparency reform, the portal largely remained restricted to secretariat-level departments for years.
By 2025, only 27 secretariat departments had been mapped on the portal, leaving citizens helpless whenever they needed information from district collectors, municipalities, Mamlatdar offices, Taluka Development Offices or local panchayat administrations.
As a result, thousands of RTI applicants continued struggling with the outdated offline filing system. The difficulties were not merely procedural; they were financial and logistical as well.
Gujarat’s RTI application fee remained fixed at Rs 20, but the traditional mechanisms to pay that fee had virtually collapsed.
Stamp papers of Rs 20 became unavailable, court fee stamps and revenue stamps were difficult to obtain, postal orders disappeared from smaller post offices and even Registered AD services were discontinued in many locations.
This forced citizens to depend on costly speed post services merely to exercise their legal right to information.
RTI activists repeatedly argued that the system itself had become a barrier to transparency. Citizens and activists submitted several representations before the General Administration Department and the RTI Cell, demanding a practical and fully digital mechanism.
The issue gained fresh momentum in October 2025 when Ahmedabad-based RTI activist and RTI Ekta Manch member Alpesh Bhavsar filed an RTI application seeking details about the implementation status of district-level mapping on the online portal.
What emerged through the RTI replies exposed a striking administrative slowdown.
Despite repeated reminders issued earlier by the General Administration Department, several departments had still failed to connect their district and taluka offices to the online RTI system.
Bhavsar then escalated the matter further by sending detailed representations to four crucial departments: Panchayat, Revenue, Housing and Urban Development.
When no substantial response arrived, he intensified the legal-information route by filing RTI applications directly before the departments concerned. The replies that followed painted a mixed but revealing picture of the government’s internal progress.
The Revenue Department admitted in its response that the “mapping work is in progress,” indirectly acknowledging that large sections of its field administration remain outside the digital RTI framework.
Notably, the Home Department instructed the office of the Inspector General of Police to ensure that all police commissioner offices are linked to the online RTI portal, bringing law enforcement administration closer to digital accountability.
The Panchayat Department, on the other hand, reportedly mapped several District Panchayats and Taluka Panchayats but has still not provided complete information in response to the RTI applications, raising further questions over departmental coordination and transparency.
What makes the development even more significant is the fact that the Revenue Department and the Housing and Urban Development Department consistently record the highest numbers of RTI applications and appeals in Gujarat, as highlighted in the latest Annual Report of the Gujarat State Information Commission.
The issue has also revived a larger debate around the government’s commitment to the Digital India Mission launched in 2015.
While governments across the country continue promoting “paperless administration” and environmental sustainability, activists argue that many departments have failed to translate those promises into practical systems accessible to common citizens.
For ordinary people, the stakes are enormous.
Offices such as Mamlatdar offices, municipalities, TDO offices and collectorates handle everyday issues related to land, taxation, construction permissions, local governance and welfare benefits, making them among the most RTI-sensitive institutions in the state.
Now, after remaining confined to secretariat corridors since 2021, Gujarat’s online RTI portal has finally begun reaching district and taluka administrations.
For RTI activists and citizens who spent years fighting procedural barriers, the move is being seen not merely as a technical upgrade, but as a delayed victory for transparency, accessibility and the legal right to information.
