Knowing is Your Birth Right

That was the time activists Shankar Singh was camping in Devdungri with his wife Anchi and Aruna Roy and Nikhil De, looking for ways to help people in the area. 8216;8216;We were keen on taking up the minimum wage issue. Around the same time, villagers from Sameliya panchayat told us that they were being paid Rs 11 instead of Rs 22 as minimum wage,8217;8217; Singh says. There was one exception: A young man who said he had been paid the entire amount only because he was literate and insisted on seeing the muster roll before taking the payment.

After much haggling, the sarpanch agreed to show him the muster roll, where he found that his and every other worker8217;s signature had been forged and according to the book, everyone had been paid Rs 22. 8216;8216;It was then that we realised how important it was to actually see these papers,8217;8217; Singh adds.

Soon enough, villagers in Rajsamand, Pali and Ajmer districts were demanding their right to know. More and more people were refusing to take their wages unless they were given the full amount. And they also wanted to see the muster rolls, something they were constantly denied.

By 1994, the movement had a name: the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti. And finally, some impact: An IAS probationer was appointed the Block District Officer and agreed to attend a people8217;s hearing in Kot Kirana village. As names from a muster roll were read out, it was found that 45 people had not gone to work but, according to the records, had been 8216;8216;paid8217;8217;.

Here at Kot Kirana began the struggle8217;s second phase, as it were. For access to land records, muster rolls and documents that revealed how development funds were being spent. And all along the way, the corruption that greased the government machinery got more apparent: the curtain was lifting on corrupt sarpanchs, block level and district level officers; money spent on non-existent projects, wages paid to dead people, on a PDS that doled out wheat to people who never got any.

That the movement was finally being taken seriously by the government was evident later that year, when then Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat announced that everyone had the right to access public documents under the Panchayati Raj Act. In May 2000, the Ashok Gehlot government notified that the act would be extended to all government departments.

8216;8216;It hasn8217;t been easy,8217;8217; says Hansarup. 8216;8216;The law sounds good on paper, but our struggle has not ended. Even today we have to be very persistent if we want any information. But once more and more people start using the right, things will slowly change. Perseverance is the only way.8217;8217;

Right Act, Wrong Results

VINITA DESHMUKH
PUNE: MAHARASHTRA brought its citizens a step closer to transparency on demand with the Right To Information Act in December 2000. On paper, that is: as three Pune-based activists discovered, government officials are as tight-fisted about information that directly affects the tax-payers as before. The Act was revised through an ordinance in September 2002 that culled out Public Information Officers from within government officials in all departments at all levels.

In the interim, Qaneez Sukhrani, Shahid Burney and Geeta Raybagkar filed a writ petition in Bombay High Court. The court on November 18 directed the state government to ensure that authorities responded to the petitioners within four weeks. The petitioners are still waiting for an authenticated copy of the November 18 order. All three are determined to file contempt petitions if the authorities don8217;t respond to their queries within four weeks.

Qaneez Sukhrani filed two requests under the Right to Information Act 8212; one enquired about the power situation in Pune; the other wanted to know how much public money was being spent on sterilisation and anti-rabies programmes in the Pune Municipal Corporation. Her first application was submitted on May 30; when she didn8217;t get a response, she filed an appeal on June 19 and a second reminder on August 20. 8216;8216;What should be routine is unneccesarily complicated. Why couldn8217;t the municipal commissioner have given me the data?8221; says Sukhrani. About the petition in the Bombay High Court, she says, 8216;8216;The objective was to make the bureaucracy responsive to the Right To Information Act. There8217;s no way they can brush it aside merely as yet another legislation.8217;8217;

Shahid Burney, a freelance journalist, wanted to know the names of police officers of all levels who8217;ve served in Pune district for more than three years. Burney also wanted the names of people who recommend the cancellation of transfers of officers. 8216;8216;My contention is that when an officers does not get transferred at regular intervals, he develops a vested interest.8217;8217; Burney8217;s first application was made on May 25; his appeal to the appellate authority on July 29 and his second reminder on August 13.

Geeta Raybagkar spearheaded the campaign to save the Lonavala hill station that compelled the state government to dissolve the Lonavala Municipal Council. But saving Lonavala seems to have been easier than getting information from the government: when Raybagkar sought copies of enquiry reports on the Lonavala Municipal Council filed by the additional collector of Pune and special auditors, all she heard in return was silence.

When officials refused to reply to her application on June 7, her appeal on July 31 and her reminder on August 20, she teamed up with Sukhrani and Burney to file a writ petition in the Bombay High Court. 8216;8216;It8217;s tragic that despite the RTI ordinance, officials are totally inactive and indifferent,8217;8217; says Raybagkar, who has received a letter from the Pune collectorate that copies of three official reports will be made available to her on payment of the cost of photocopying.