Alert citizen uses RTI to nail postal delay

 Anil Singh,  13 February 2010

MUMBAI: Millions crib about snail mail but one aggrieved
consumer used the Right To Information Act (RTI)
to hold the postal departmentaccountable for delay
and to refund aggrieved customers promptly




Thanks to Dahisar resident Kishanlal Mittal, the Secretary, 
Department of Posts, has been told to issue instructions to
make it mandatory for every Speed Post Centre in the
country to prominently display its delivery norms.

The instructions came in an order by Central Information 
Commissioner (CIC) Deepak Sandhu on January 27, 2010.

The bureaucrat heading the postal department has also been
directed to ensure that there are adequate telephone lines and
manpower available to takecomplaints on telephone.
Emails should be responded to promptly with an assurance
that the complaint will be resolved in 7-10 days, says the order.

To ensure that the customer is not made to run from pillar
to post for the refund, the order says that the booking centre
should inform the complainant regarding his refund and ensure
that he\she does not have to make multiple trips to the post
office to lodge a complaint and claim refund.

Mittal's experience is that 90 % of parcels sent by
Speed Post reach late and that one has to wait for
six months to get a refund for delayed delivery.

He is not the only one to say that. Last year, Mahim resident 

Milind Mulay found out using the RTI that 

27,774 Speed Post items booked from the

Western suburbs of Mumbai did not reach addresses

in Mumbai in time.

Last August, when an important document Mittal had sent to
Kanpur by Speed Post reached four days late, he used the
RTI to seek answers for questions pertaining to delivery norms
of Speed Post, grievance redressal mechanism and refund in
case of delayed delivery.

Since he was not satisfied by the answers he got from the
central principal information officer, Mittal appealed to the
first appellate authority. Here, too, he was disappointed with
the reply and the matter went to the
Central Information Commission, New Delhi.

On January 27, a hearing was held through video conferencing,
where Mittal was represented by his son, Girish. Girish
complained that Speed Post centres across the country
do not display their delivery norms.

Agreeing with him, CIC Deepak Sandhu said that there
is a wide gap between promise and performance when it
comes to Speed Post. She noted in her order that while the
customer is charged the full fees for an upgraded service,
the exact nature of the service is not made transparent to him\her.

The secretary, department of posts, has been told to
ensure compliance of the order in accordance with
section 25(5) of the RTI Act, 2005.

How the law works ?


The secretary, department of posts, has been told by the 

Central Information Commissioner Deepak Sandhu to ensure 

compliance of her order in accordance with section 25(5) of the RTI Act, 2005.

This section says: ``If it appears to the Central Information Commission or
State Information Commission, as the case may be, that the practice of a
public authority in relation to the exercise of its functions under this Act
does not conform with the provisions or spirit of this Act,
it may give to the authority a recommendation specifying the
steps which ought, in its opinion, to be taken for promoting such conformity.''