After opposing the RTI rules, draft of which was made public early this month, the civil society now plans to write to the government to extend the December 27 deadline for public feedback on the proposed changes. The civil society has reportedly got the support of NAC member Aruna Roy in this initiative.

The idea is to make a draft set of suggestions on the RTI rules and present it to the government.

In the last ten days, National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) has held two meetings to prepare a draft of suggestions and comments on RTI rules.

It is learnt that some more brainstorming will happen before the civil society finally submits the paper to the government.

Since December 10, the day it started inviting people’s comments and suggestions on the rules, the department of personal and training (DoPT) has received around 13, 000 emails on the issue.

DoPT has roped in technical experts to clear the backlog of emails.

“People have been calling us to say that the email they sent to us is boucing back. We are looking into the problem now,” said K G Verma, director, RTI, DoPT

One of the proposed RTI rules say that the word limit for every RTI application will be 250 words and each application will have queries related to one subject matter only.

Civil society groups across the country have unequivocally opposed the rules .

Governance Now was the first to report the development. (See 'related stories' for details).