WHY are our roads bad? Why aren’t we getting water? Why are amenities so poor though we pay tax? Using the powerful Maharashtra Right to Information Act, citizens are making government officials accountable.
Consider this: Inspired by MRTI of 2003, thousands of citizens — experts peg the figure at 20,000 — across the State have been inspired to invoke it. In Pune, the Public Information Officer (PIO) of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is kept busy with around 10 RTI applications every working day. Rattling off statistics, PIO Arun Patil states that since September 2002, when PMC launched its RTI cell, almost 2,000 applications have been received: 551 between September 2002 and March 2004; 960 from April 2004 to March 2005; and 388 from April 2005 to date.
Besides the PMC, every other State government department like the police commissionerate, the collectorate and so forth have also been besieged with RTI applications.
What’s noteworthy is that while Pune is noted for civic activism, not only seasoned activists but common citizens, too, who would never have been given a hearing by a government official are using RTI. So, you have the neighbourhood electrician, youngsters from different strata of society, women who would have complained within the four walls of the house dashing off letters to the government.
They are, of course, all inspired by Anna Hazare who, through his relentless right to know campaign, enlightened citizens on the immense power of RTI.
Take for example 68-year-old Prabha Nene, a traffic warden. Appalled by the constant digging of roads and the PMC’s ineffectiveness, she asked how much money the PMC had collected from telecom companies and the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) between 2000 and 2004 as charges for road repairs due to digging.
Vijay More, a Katraj resident harassed by a drinking water crisis, asked the amount of water received per person in Katraj compared to elite areas like Deccan Gymkhana and Fergusson College Road. College lecturer Madhuri Barge could not bear to commute to work due to bad roads — so, she asked about road repairs. Santosh Jagtap, a video library owner and a Hadapsar resident, used the RTI when a flyover which entailed road-widening (and therefore land acquisition) was coming up in his neighbourhood. (Details in Express Initiatives: Page 7)
Maj Gen SCN Jatar (retd), who has used RTI extensively, states that his greatest aspiration was that the administration should listen to citizens. ‘‘Earlier, when we would take up issues with the PMC, we never had adequate information so the officers would give some reason and we would beat a hasty retreat. Now, we equip ourselves with information through RTI and then approach the officer with the documents. This has made Nagrik Chetna Manch into a very effective citizen pressure group.’’
As for the common man, Jagtap’s words tell it all: ‘‘The RTI has caught my imagination, as a faceless man can now put pressure on the authorities if they bungle. Now, I hold meetings in my neighbourhood and have inspired 10-15 people to use the RTI.’’