By Alok Prakash Putul in Chhattisgarh

Most Indians cannot afford to pay for information

When Rakesh Shukla, a poor farmer from the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, asked local authorities for information on paddy field purchases in his area, he was handed a bill for 182,000 rupees ($4,100).

Authorities told him that the bulk of the expenses - 108,000 rupees ($2,400) - had been spent photocopying over 90,000 copies of official papers relating to the purchases.

The documents filled an entire room.

Mr Shukla, who earns less than $1 a day, was shocked - he was, after all, using a landmark new freedom of information law which gives Indians the right to access information held by the government.

The law applies to government agency material as well as private sector data which is held by official bodies. The nationwide law is aimed at increasing transparency in public life and helping curb corruption.

A senior local official, SK Raju, says he is "shocked" by the bill presented to Rakesh Shukla for the information he requested.

"Now we have to ask the state government for directions [on what to do]," he says.

'How will we work?'

Mr Shukla is not alone in being asked to pay up to secure information held by government.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh says the law should be changed

When a resident of Bilaspur district applied to the local village council for information on applications for the positions of school teachers, he was told that he would have to pay 75,000 rupees ($1,690) to cover photocopying costs for 9,000 applications.

Bilaspur village council official MD Diwan says they simply do not have the money to provide information to people. "If so much of money is going to be spent over each information request, how will we work," he says.

In India, most information held by government agencies lies in voluminous, dust-caked, dog-eared files and ledgers.

If information is sought, the files and ledgers have to opened, material photocopied and sums manually totted up.

Very little information has been computerised in a country which is touted as the world's info-tech back office.

'Is the information useful?'

When the federal government introduced the pioneering law last October, there was no thought about the problems it could run into.

The law itself is exhaustive.

It allows the public to "inspect works, documents, records, take notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records, take certified samples of material, obtain information in form of printouts, diskettes, floppies (disks), tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through printouts".

Most government offices, like this police station, use paper for documentation (Pic: Prashant Ravi)

The situation on the ground is not so rosy.

In Chhattisgarh, for example, a person who demands information has to pay two rupees (five cents) for every photocopied page of official material. People who live below $1 a day are supposed to get the information free.

Authorities say that ever since the law was passed, the poorest of the poor have risen in demanding information from the government.

But the government does not have the money to supply it.

In many cases, they say, the already cash-strapped government has covered the expenses when the poor client could not pay.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh suspects that the well to do people are using the poor to get information "free" from the government.

He says his government spent 250,000 rupees ($5,631) for "collecting" information on ponds.

"Is the information useful to the person who is asking for it? This should be examined. The law needs to be reviewed and changed," Mr Singh says.

He said he will be writing to the federal government about the prohibitive costs of supplying information.