Digital Maharashtra, Opaque Departments: Why Citizens Still Can’t File RTIs Online

X: @vivekbhavsar

When it comes to e-governance, Maharashtra proudly calls itself India’s digital powerhouse. From MahaIT dashboards to blockchain experiments, the state flaunts its technological prowess. Yet, behind this shine lies an irony: citizens still cannot file online Right to Information (RTI) applications directly to some of the most powerful public bodies handling billions in taxpayer money.

Key departments and corporations — including Mahadiscom, Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran (MJP), MIDC, MSRDC, CIDCO and several others — still lack direct online RTI windows. Instead, citizens are forced to file through the MahaT RTI portal, which redirects requests to their parent ministries such as the Energy Department or the Industries Department.

Each redirection introduces avoidable delay. Section 6(3) of the RTI Act mandates that such transfers must happen within five days, but in practice, it can take two weeks or more — a built-in bureaucratic buffer that defeats the Act’s spirit of timely transparency.

The Magel Tyala Saur Pump Yojana offers a textbook example. When TheNews21 filed an RTI seeking tender and allocation data from Mahadiscom, the portal had no direct entry. The application had to be submitted to the Energy Department, which is expected to forward it internally. Each hop adds uncertainty: will the file move? when? who tracks the delay?

For a citizen or journalist outside the system, this digital wall feels deliberate — a quiet throttling of access in a state that claims to champion “ease of doing business.”

Experts point out that while the RTI Act ensures every public authority must appoint its own Public Information Officer (PIO), the law did not envision a world of fragmented online gateways. Many PSUs exploit this technical ambiguity to keep themselves off the digital grid. “They comply on paper, not in practice,” says a retired Maharashtra Information Commissioner. “The law is being followed in letter, not in spirit.”

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Contrast this with Kerala, Karnataka and Delhi, where every PSU, development authority, and local body is linked to a central RTI portal. Applicants can file directly to, say, the Bangalore Water Supply Board or Delhi Jal Board, track their status, and even appeal online. Maharashtra’s citizens, in contrast, are left guessing whether their queries ever reached the right destination.

Maharashtra’s Information Technology Department is among India’s best funded. With a minister like Ashish Shelar, known for his tech-savvy outlook, the absence of an integrated RTI gateway cannot be blamed on capacity. The state already maintains sophisticated digital platforms for land records, property registrations, and grievance redressal — yet transparency, the most democratic of services, remains offline.

Why? Because RTI does not generate revenue; it generates scrutiny.

Every detour costs the applicant time and postage — and often discourages follow-ups. For reporters chasing corruption trails, the delay blurs timelines and weakens accountability. Departments exploit the lag, returning replies after statutory deadlines or citing “forwarding in process.” In some cases, replies from the parent department arrive without annexures because the actual PSU never responded.

TheNews21’s own experience reveals how bureaucratic opacity defeats the very purpose of digital governance. A few months ago, an RTI filed by the newsroom to the Industries Department sought details on alleged misuse of the state’s “Cluster Development Policy” in Thane district. Instead of a straightforward reply, the application was shuffled from Mantralaya to Andheri via Chembur and then left unanswered.

The irony deepened with the World Bank loan investigations. When TheNews21 filed queries with the Union Finance Ministry, the reply came promptly, backed with detailed statistics. Even the World Bank itself shared relevant data under its Access to Information policy. But the Maharashtra Department of Finance, despite an RTI filed on 28 August 2025, has yet to respond.

“Who is accountable when transparency stops at the state border?” asks TheNews21 Editor-in-Chief Vivek Bhavsar. “If the World Bank and the Union Ministry can share information swiftly, why can’t our own government departments respect citizens’ right to know?”

RTI activist Anil Galgali echoes this concern. He alleges that departments such as BMC, CIDCO, and MSRDC deliberately avoid making online RTI filing accessible.

“When all collector offices and most municipal corporations allow citizens to file RTIs through online portals, why can’t these departments do the same?” Galgali asked. “Even officials aren’t comfortable accepting or replying to physical applications—it consumes time and effort. The state government must take initiative and bring every department under a unified online RTI system,” he demanded.

It’s time Maharashtra upgrades from Digital Governance 1.0 to Transparency 2.0.
A single statewide RTI gateway linking every department, PSU, and corporation; automatic digital acknowledgments when a request is forwarded; and public dashboards showing pending queries — these are not futuristic ideas but simple administrative choices.

For a state that leads India in industrial investment and software exports, the refusal to modernise its transparency tools raises a larger question:

“Is Maharashtra’s digital governance designed for efficiency — or for convenience without accountability?”

The RTI Act was envisioned as the common citizen’s flashlight into the corridors of power. Two decades later, that flashlight is being dimmed by digital bureaucracy. If Maharashtra truly wishes to call itself progressive, it must first make truth accessible at a click.

Until then, citizens will continue to navigate a maze — in a state that claims to have moved online but keeps transparency stubbornly offline.