All winners at Manjunath awards

Chaturvedi,who is working against great odds in the backward villages on the Indo-Nepal border,will receive the Rs 1 lakh cash component of the integrity award,considering the continuity of the DEHAT campaign,members of the Manjunath Shanmugham Trust said.

The two other finalists Vinod Adhau,a village revenue officer who fought for the rights of farmers in the Vidharba region of Maharashtra,and Sanjiv Chaturvedi,a deputy forest conservator from Panchkula,Haryana,were also adjudged winners of the award and will be given separate cash incentives.

“For years,people settled along the Indo-Nepal border were made to believe they don’t have the rights accorded to the ordinary Indian citizens. They were being exploited. Today they know they have rights. The awareness has been created,” said Chaturvedi,who taught the villagers to use the Right to Information Act. “Jai Azaadi”,a slogan he coined for the struggle of the people is now on the lips of all the villagers,he said.

With many of his battles against the establishment still in the courts,forest officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi did not speak at length on his struggles. “When the RTI was implemented,government officers raised most objections saying they will have extra work load. Now,it is the government officers who are using the RTI Act to the maximum,” said the forest officer who learnt the power of the RTI while fighting against his suspension for questioning and thwarting illegal construction in the Saraswati Wildlife Sanctuary. The file notings obtained by him under the RTI helped him fight his case,he said.

Village revenue officer Vinod Adhua,who fought for farmers’ rights to reasonable compensation for crop loss in the pre and post-RTI era,narrated the story of a young tribal who had to wait 15 years to get a government job he was originally allocated in 1994. It was the RTI that helped bring pressure on the authorities to finally give him the job,he said.

Aruna Roy warned about the fresh battlegrounds being laid by a government move to amend the RTI to remove file notings from public access.