RTI portal not working? How to still file your RTI

The government RTI portals - the Central portal and each state's own - fail in very ordinary ways: pages that will not load, registrations that silently reject every password, OTPs and confirmation emails that never arrive, payments that go through without an acknowledgement. Your right to information does not depend on any one portal working.

Quick answer: an online portal is a convenience, not a requirement. The RTI Act, 2005 recognises a request made in writing, and the Government of India's RTI guide describes sending an application by post to the concerned public authority with the prescribed fee. So for public authorities covered by the RTI Act, a written application can generally be sent by post - after verifying the current PIO address and the fee mode accepted under the applicable rules. If the portal has already wasted your day, switch routes instead of retrying.

First: the ten-minute checks

None of these is a diagnosis - portals fail for reasons you cannot see from the outside. These are low-risk checks that cost a few minutes and sometimes get you through; if none of them changes anything, stop retrying and switch routes.

Symptom by symptom

The portal will not open at all (or shows a security/certificate error)

Try once more later the same day - outages are often temporary. Where a portal has known availability issues, our per-portal pages record what we have verified for it, with a last-verified date. If the portal stays down and your matter cannot wait, prepare the postal application instead of parking your RTI on an outage.

Registration or login fails - the password is never accepted, with no error shown

Customers report this on some account-based state portals: the registration form accepts your details, but the account never works - no error message, no confirmation email, no SMS. Worth trying once: a different email address and a fresh browser session. If the account still does not activate, stop - one possibility, which you cannot confirm or fix from outside, is that the portal's verification email is simply not going out, and no retyping helps with that. Note that not every portal needs an account, and the postal route needs none at all.

OTP, confirmation email or SMS never arrives

Check spam and confirm the mobile number has network. Wait a few minutes - delivery may be delayed. If nothing arrives after a couple of attempts spread over the day, the cause may be on the portal's side - which you cannot confirm or fix - and the fallback is the same: another day, or the post.

Payment deducted, but no acknowledgement or application number

Do not immediately pay again. Take a screenshot of the debit and note the transaction reference. After a day, check the portal's status page and your bank's record of the transaction. Some failed-but-debited transactions reverse automatically; others require a complaint - to the portal's helpdesk where one is published (your state's portal help page lists verified helpdesk details where they exist), or to your bank or payment provider, quoting the reference. Your dated record of the transaction is what any of those complaints will turn on.

Your department or public authority is not listed

Do not file under a wrong-but-similar authority - before submitting, check your portal's own help page for its jurisdiction rules and any warnings about misdirected applications. Search for the parent department first; many local bodies, universities and district offices sit under a broader entry. If the authority genuinely is not on the portal, the postal route to that authority's PIO is the alternative. FindMyPIO helps you locate the office.

The form rejects your RTI text or your upload

One possibility you can rule out yourself - without being able to see the real cause - is formatting or size: plain text via Notepad, short numbered questions, simple punctuation; a small, plainly-named PDF. Some portals also have character limits and expect longer text as an attachment - our per-portal pages list the limits we have verified.

"There is no helpdesk. Nobody answers."

Where a portal publishes a helpdesk - a phone number, an email, sometimes both - we record the verified details on that state's page in our RTI Portal Help section, along with that portal's known errors and fixes, each with a last-verified date. Check there before concluding no help exists. If no helpdesk is published for your portal, or none responds, that is itself the answer: stop debugging and switch to the route below.

The route that does not depend on the portal

For public authorities covered by the RTI Act, a written application can generally be sent by post, addressed to the Public Information Officer, with the prescribed fee attached in a mode accepted under the applicable rules - commonly an Indian Postal Order for Central authorities. No account, no OTP, no payment gateway. Before dispatch, verify the current PIO address and the fee mode for that authority. Our step-by-step offline filing guide covers the format, fee modes and proof of dispatch; FindMyPIO helps locate the office; and if getting an Indian Postal Order is the obstacle, our IPO courier service sends ready-to-use IPOs to your door.

If your matter has a deadline attached - a limitation period, a hearing date, an appeal window, a scheme's last date - be clear about what an RTI does and does not do. Filing an RTI does not pause, extend or protect any other deadline. An RTI is a route to request information or records from a public authority, subject to the Act - it is not a substitute for the appeal, complaint, application or petition that the deadline belongs to. Pursue that remedy separately, within its own time limit, and treat the RTI as the parallel track for requesting the record.
Already drafted your RTI and just can't get it filed?

This page exists because customers reach us in exactly this position - RTI ready, portal refusing to cooperate. FileMyRTI files it for you: correct PIO, correct fee mode, correct route (online where it works, post where it does not), with the acknowledgement sent to you.

File my RTI for me Which portal should I use?

Frequently asked questions

Is an RTI filed by post as valid as one filed online?

Yes. The RTI Act, 2005 recognises a request made in writing or through electronic means, and the Government of India's own RTI guide describes sending an application by post to the concerned public authority with the prescribed fee. Before dispatch, verify the current PIO address and the fee mode accepted under the applicable Central or State RTI Rules.

The RTI portal took my money but shows no application. Have I lost the fee?

Not necessarily - but there is no single guaranteed outcome. Keep the debit screenshot and transaction reference, then check the portal's status page and your bank's transaction status after a day. Some failed-but-debited transactions reverse automatically; others need a complaint to the portal's helpdesk or to your bank or payment provider, quoting the reference. Do not immediately pay again while the first transaction is unresolved.

My state's RTI portal never works for me. Can I just use the Central RTI portal instead?

No. The Central portal (rtionline.gov.in) is for Central Government public authorities only, so a state matter filed there will not reach the state authority. Before submitting anywhere, check the jurisdiction rules and any refund warnings on that portal's own help page. For a state subject, use that state's portal or the postal route to the state PIO.

How long should I keep trying an RTI portal before switching to post?

A reasonable rule: run the basic checks (fresh browser, plain text, small attachment, spam folder), plus one retry later the same day. If it still fails, prepare the postal application - after verifying the current PIO address and fee mode for that authority.

This page is deliberately generic: portal-specific facts (downtime behaviour, helpdesks, payment handling, character limits, jurisdiction warnings) are not asserted here - they live on our per-portal pages, each carrying its own last-verified date. See RTI Portal Help for all 28 states, 8 union territories and the Central portal. References: the Right to Information Act, 2005 on India Code (Section 6) and the DoPT Guide on the RTI Act. Fee amounts are prescribed by the applicable Central or State RTI Rules and are not stated here.

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