Jaago India Jaago

We all are tired of corrupt government officials misusing their powers and would definitely feel like exposing corruption and bringing about transparency in Governance. Hold on your breadths comrades, for what you are going to read now would be the most alluring and stupefying things of recent times. Let me present before you the mighty and righty, Right to Information Act!!!

We, the citizens of India, are the masters of this country. The governments exist to serve us. But do you really feel we are the masters? Have you ever desired to be the masters?

While asking all this it is very well known that the answer to all these questions is NO, a big NO. Why should we bother about anything as long as we get our daily share of freaking out with friends and babble? This is our world and this is all what matters to us. Even I was of a similar opinion until lately.

The RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT (RTI) came into being on 12th October 2005. Its motive is to ensure that the general public like you and me has access to information which is under the control of various government authorities. It is designed to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every government department or institution at both central and state levels.

When I say information, it means two kinds of information. It could be either to get some information about the schemes being run by the government or it could be to unearth corruption. It could be for some personal use, like knowing about your pending telephone connections, or in favor of the masses in general. For instance one fine morning you might want to ask PMC why the heck the roads in your locality are so exemplary. Folks, RTI is just the kind of tool all of us were looking for.

All of us dislike paying taxes. Imagine a notion wherein you get to see all expenditure records for every single project undertaken by the municipal and provide you with accounts of every single penny of your taxes. Won’t this at least give you an unmatched sense of satisfaction that your hard earned money is going to be put in for some good use to your society? Every government office has a public information cell and there is a Public Information Officer (PIO) whose job is to answer our queries. The queries can be made in the form of an application which is to be submitted with a nominal fee of Rs 10. And the best part is that Below Poverty Line (BPL) people do not have to pay even a single penny for this.

Filing an application is not at all complicated. It is a very simple process.

1. You can apply on a plain peace of paper also.

2. Ask questions which are to the point, do not beat around the bush or write essays.

3. The language used must be correct, i.e. avoid using negative or accusing language.

I must enlighten you with a few RTI success stories... There are many farmers who had applied for loans but never got them passed. After applying RTI, their two year old applications were considered and action was taken. Similarly with a stark request of details about the officer in charge for handling pensions, retired people who were not getting pensions for over two years markedly got those pensions kick started with a warm and humble request to withdraw the applications.

Mumbai police, till very recently used to see a lot of officers being transferred without notice and reasons. Classic example, Sudhir Naik, an Assistant Commissioner in Greater Mumbai Metropolitan Council, whose transfer orders were cancelled on application of RTI by the local residents. He was being transferred for initiating projects like “Zero Garbage Drive”, which forced the cleaning staff to perform their duties promptly. This speaks volumes about the power of RTI.

Sailesh (name changed), a mazdoor in Gujarat wanted to apply for his Ration Card, officials for which were available twice a month. So there used to be huge queues on both days. The officials would entertain only those who offered bribes. When Sailesh requested for his ration card through his RTI application, to the whole mazdoor communities’ surprise, it was revealed that the officials were supposed to be working on all working days for Ration Card instead of just 2 days a month. Thanks to Sailesh, now the mazdoors don’t have to wait for months together for their cards.

The power of RTI was also experienced by a Chandrakant Kale, who received his Property Registration Card (PR) - an age old pending issue since last 30 years was resolved.

RTI exposed the log book entries on outstation trips made by Pune’s mayor. Official cars were used to visit places like Mahabaleshwar, Lonavla, Khandala, Jalna, Dhule, Yavatmal and even Nipani in Karnataka. According to the log book, she pulled off the impossible of being present at two places at the same time. On December 18, the Mayor was at Sangamner in one of her official vehicles and at Alibag in another; on May 31 and June 1, she was at Mumbai and Ahmednagar simultaneously; on September 20, she was at Mahabaleshwar and Nashik at the same time and on December 9, she was in Mumbai and also in Ahmednagar. The total expenditure on cars was a staggering Rs 51,02,235 from January 1 to October 31, 2003. What a waste of our money. The PIO has confirmed no audit has ever been carried out on the use of official vehicles. Now it will.

People have now started using RTI very innovatively to expose corruption. A person deliberately broke a signal and took a challan receipt. Every receipt has a number. A week later he asked his daughter to break a signal and get one more receipt. He now asked how traffic police used the fine collected between these two receipt numbers! A kind of fear in now cropping up in the minds of government employees now. There was this application filed on some orphanage to get the accounts and management details; and the very next day all the children there had new clothes, books and other facilities. So this is what RTI can do to us.

Two year old Ramsu is a young life ebbing away, thanks to insensitivity of the government. Two out of three children are mal-nourished in the country. In certain areas, as many as 50% infants die of hunger which is usually disguised by the more decent word "malnutrition". One out of every four mothers dying of hunger in the world is an Indian - a record which puts to shame the distinction of being one of the highest food producers. What we call our basic needs is luxury for 30% of our fellow country mates. Most of the rural India, even after 60 years of independence does not have access to drinking water within a range of 5 km from their village. By the way, drinking water means running tap water here. We can only imagine what our lives would have been had we had to get water from that far.

And where are we in the picture? We make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? "It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone take action?"

So who's going to change the system? What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us, it consists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities & the government. But definitely not ME and YOU.

Let’s face one more fact. For the 540 MPs of our Lok Sabha, the expense for 5 years is Rs. 8,54,40,00,000 (nearly 855 crores). All thanks to the massive Indian tax paying community for generating this colossal amount. And they are elected by THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, by the largest democratic process in the world, not intruded into the parliament on their own or by any qualification. And you are aware of the consequences better than me. OUR tax money is been swallowed by “our servants” and prices being hiked on our regular commodities.

Why there is never any doctor or medicines at a government hospital near you?
Why your local municipality does so little and always claims that they have no funds?
Where have all the teachers in the government schools gone?

The Right to Information Act gives us the right to obtain information from the government about matters that affect us in thousands of ways. Used innovatively, such information could lead to exposure of corruption and inaction, and make the government responsive and accountable. Shockingly enough common citizens collectively pay more than Rs. 21,000 crores per year as bribes. You must have heard about the multi crore fake stamp paper (Telgi) scam. It was indeed brought into light by our very own Shri Anna Hazare sir, who applied RTI repeatedly to know more about the stamp papers being issued.

The government spends so much money on various works in your area. You may and should ask for the details of all the works carried out by the municipal body in your area. How much money was spent? On what works was it spent? Similar information was requested by people all over the country since October 2005. As expected it was physically verified that a number of works existed only on paper. Won’t you like to hold the government similarly accountable in your area, city and state?

Under the RTI Act, we can demand from any government body:

1. Any information pertaining to any of its departments
2. Photocopies of contracts, payments, estimates, measurements of engineering works, etc.
3. to inspect any under-construction or completed work done by the government
4. to inspect government documents - books, registers, drawings, records, absolutely anything
the status of your complaints and requests

It often happens that a government inspector comes to inspect something or the other. But has it ever happened that a common man goes to a government department seeking to inspect government works?

When through RTI Act, a citizen inspects government work or takes samples of material of that work; he deals a severe blow to corrupt practices by unscrupulous officials. We can inspect an old work (which has already been completed) or a currently ongoing work. If we inspect an old work, we can expose corruption that might have taken place. But if we inspect an ongoing work, we will be able to prevent corruption from taking place.

The issue of worriment is that not many people know about the existence of such a propitious act. We have such a powerful tool to fight corruption supplicating for attention and use. Let’s make it one of our aims to reignite the minds of citizens who have lost faith in the cause that is India. As they rightly say, “There is nothing as strong as the heart of a volunteer”. Come join the RTI Biradari.

Does this article prick your conscience? What are you going to do about it?