Maharashtra state information commission Suresh Joshi has recommended that not more than 100 pages of information should be provided free of cost to RTI applicants belonging to below poverty line (BPL) category.

According to Joshi, RTI applicants are misusing the clause of the transparency act under which information should be provided free of cost to BPL applicants. Joshi made these recommendations at a meeting with chief minister Ashok Chavan on Saturday. He gave an example where a person in the BPL category asked for information which ran into five lakh pages. “We charge Rs 2 per page. In this case, the information would amount to Rs 10 lakh. I believe that those below the poverty line would not be interested in this kind of information. Someone was using the person to obtain the information free of cost,” Times of India quoted Joshi as saying. “If the information runs into several pages, we have recommended that the person be asked to inspect the documents and suggest which pages he wants photocopied,” added he.

Joshi also recommended that details of important government schemes should be displayed on the blackboards, taluka walls and collector’s office.