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Journalism of Courage
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This is an archive article published on August 15, 2010
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RTI activist Deshmukh isnt afraid to ask questions
Every time Ajit Deshmukh,an advocate,visited the zilla parishad office in Beed,a district in Maharashtra,on work,he saw rows of empty chairs behind the stacks of files. The officer he had to meet would invariably not have turned up for the day and Deshmukh had to return empty handed. Deshmukh then decided he had the right to askdid these officials ever report to work?
In 2007,he filed an application under the Right to Information RTI Act,seeking copies of attendance registers. The results were shocking: in 217 government offices across the district,2,000 employees were absent for 8,500 days, says Deshmukh,who is associated with a body called the Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Andolan.
That one RTI made waves,with then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh constituting a committee that paid surprise visits to government offices across the state and randomly check attendance registers. Those checks also brought out a startling fact: 75 per cent employees in government offices across the state skipped work.
Deshmukh,44,has been filing RTI petitions since 2002,when it was limited to the state of Maharashtra. So far,he has filed about 900 RTI applications and exposed cases of corruption.
Deshmukh,who is now working against the tanker lobby in Beed district,says,We used the RTI to find out that tanker owners travel in a radius of 10 km around Beed town and charge the district administration for 30 km. The corruption is such that the tanker bill this year was Rs four crore.
Deshmukh admits to getting threats,especially from the builder and tanker lobbies. Initially,I used to be scared,but not now. After all,someone has to blow the whistle.
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