CHANDIGARH: Adding another feather to its e-cap, the gram panchayat of Bibipur in Haryana has started replying to RTI queries on email within two days of the application.
Setting an example of transparency in governance, all important documents of the panchayat are being uploaded on Facebook and made available on Whatsapp. There is a proposal to make the village WiFi-enabled as well. The village already has its own website.
“In the last four years we have replied to more than 300 RTI queries. As our panchayat got two national awards, the expectations of people were high from us. Most of them wanted to know about our working style, the work done by us, budgeting, expenditure and we replied,’’ he added.
Considering the growing number of RTI queries, the panchayat last week decided to start replying to RTI queries that are sent to the official email ID of the village (sarpanch@bibipur.com) free of cost within two days. “In the last one week, we have replied to 17 RTI queries. We have no pending RTI queries now,’’ Jaglan said.
“Besides this, we have put our audit reports, budget, bills, resolutions, photos and other paper work of various schemes on Facebook (Sunil Jaglan) and all these are sent to more than 50 groups on Whatsapp,” he said. On Facebook, the village connects with 3,000 people. On Whatsapp to around 2,500 people.