If the government bears the cost of the call centre, all that it would levy through the phone bill is the RTI fee of Rs 10 and the regular call charge. This option would be in tune with the letter Gandhi wrote on April 17 to party CMs commending the Bihar model to them "for taking the RTI Act to the doorstep of poor and illiterate masses through the use of information technology".

Congress run-states may soon follow the model of an RTI call centre run by the NDA government in Bihar to make information more accessible to the poor and illiterate. When asked if the non-subsidized option involving over a 10-fold increase in the cost won't defeat the call centre's object of taking RTI to the poor, minister Prithviraj Chavan said that if the call centre route worked out to be more expensive, the citizen had the option of sending his RTI application by post. "Cost is not a major issue -- whether for government or for the applicant," he added.

The difference in perception between Sonia Gandhi and Chavan is obvious. While Chavan sees the call centre essentially as a convenient mode of filing RTI applications, the UPA chief took it as a breakthrough for empowering the masses to enforce accountability.

Whatever choice DoPT finally makes on the question of subsidy, the call centre is likely to be run on the lines of the Bihar model in the first year. This is because UNDP is funding it as an e-governance project developed by the department of information technology. UNDP has agreed to provide Rs 2.5 crore for setting up infrastructure in Gurgaon and meeting operational costs in first year.