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Know your rights
General information only. This page explains public law and public process. It is not legal advice, and Pick My Advisor is not a law firm or your legal representative. For advice on your specific situation, speak to an independent Advocate.
What it is. The Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act, 2011 — known as Sakala — puts a legally notified time limit on hundreds of government services. Birth and death certificates, khata, trade licences, water and power connections, ration and revenue certificates and many more are covered.
What you can claim. Where a designated officer fails to deliver a notified service in time, the Act provides for a compensatory cost of ₹20 per day of delay, up to ₹500 per application — recovered from the responsible officer's salary, not written off by the department.
One honest caveat: Sakala covers notified services — applications you make. It does not cover every civic complaint. A pothole or a missed garbage pickup usually falls under a department's citizen charter instead, which is why some issues on PMA show a timeline and others read “Timeline being verified.”
Official reference: sakala.kar.nic.in
What it is. Under the Right to Information Act, 2005, any citizen can ask a public authority for its records — file notes, work orders, tender documents, complaint status, inspection reports. Departments must answer.
| Where | rtionline.karnataka.gov.in — or by Speed Post to the department's Public Information Officer |
|---|---|
| Fee | ₹10. Free if you are Below Poverty Line |
| Reply due | 30 days. No reply is treated as a refusal |
| If refused or ignored | First Appeal to the First Appellate Authority, within 30 days |
| Still nothing | Second Appeal to the Karnataka Information Commission, within 90 days |
| Copying charges | Roughly ₹2 per A4 page |
How to write one that works. Ask for documents and dates, not opinions. “Provide the file notings and action-taken report on complaint no. X between [date] and [date]” gets an answer. “Why has nobody fixed my road?” does not.
Official reference: rti.karnataka.gov.in
Almost every complaint fails at the same point: the person who received it isn't the person who can act, and nobody moves it. Escalating is not rudeness. It's the designed path.
| Filed | Recorded with a tracking ID |
|---|---|
| Routed | Sent to the responsible department; the clock starts |
| Timeline passes | Reminder to the same department, plus local follow-up |
| 1.5× the timeline | The next officer up — zone or division level |
| 2× the timeline | Corporation or commissioner level, and we surface your RTI, legal-notice and court options |
| Sustained and unresolved | With your consent, the issue can go to our media partners and the public issues wall |
Doing it yourself. Start at your ward page for the responsible department and official contact, keep every reference number, and put each escalation in writing — email or a portal, never only a phone call.
In an emergency, call 112 now. PMA does not provide emergency response and cannot reach anyone on your behalf.
Some situations move past civic process: an encroachment, a demolition notice, a repeated failure that has caused you real loss. At that point you may want a legal notice sent, or a matter taken to court.
PMA does not draft legal notices and does not give legal advice. What we do is connect you with an independent Advocate enrolled with a State Bar Council, who advises you directly and charges you their own fee. A ₹99 PMA service fee applies for the connection — it is PMA's platform fee, not the Advocate's fee, and it guarantees no outcome.