Some time back, Mr. Jayakumar a NRI from Singapore, who sought help from AID RTI Helpdesk regarding his mother's pending passport application. The good news is his mother was able to get her passport. So in effect this is the first direct success story for NRI help desk. 

 Madhav, a RTI activist in Chennai helped AID RTI Helpdesk for this application. It took almost 2 months of constant follow-up on his part to get this done. Initially the application to Public Information Officer (PIO) had no effect. Then he had to file first appeal to Appellate Authority (AA). Even after that, there was no response. Then he had to make some visits to the passport office and meet with PIO and AA to get this done. Only after a few visits did they start becoming cooperative?

 While we take passport RTI applications for granted (meaning you just have to file a RTI application to get your passport), the reality that RTI activists go through on the ground is vastly different. We should be sensitive to the fact that it takes a lot of effort on their part to get something’s done, that we take for granted.

 If this is the case in Chennai, we can well imagine what would be the plight in several other villages where RTI has not caught up. You can also imagine what would be the situation of more complex applications that question power, authority and corruption.