PARIVARTAN, the citizens’ body, is all set to rope in Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in its campaign to increase awareness about the use of the Right to Information Act (RTI).
‘‘The whole idea of involving IIT in the campaign is to elicit active participation of qualified professionals to make the government accountable through RTI. We plan to ask faculty members and third-year and fourth-year engineering students to help us validate the work orders the MCD and PWD claim to have done,’’ said Arvind Kejriwal, Parivartan’s founder.
On Friday, Kejriwal, an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur, presented a workshop on RTI at IIT-Delhi on the occasion of the institute’s annual Alumni Meet.
So far, Parivartan has identified 30 locations where engineers from IIT could file RTI pleas after validating the work done. These range from road material used, the replacement of joints on the Nizamuddin bridge, construction of roads etc.
During the workshop, students, alumni and faculty members alike showed a lot of interest on the use of the Right to Information Act. The Alumni Association plans to discuss the issue at their executive meeting and participate actively in the campaign.
The possibilities offered by the use of RTI came as a revelation for students.
‘‘The workshop was an eye-opener. Though we had all heard about the Right to Information Act, we never knew we could use it to change things that we have taken for granted. Parivartan has shown us that a lot of power lies in a common citizen’s hand and we must use it to make democracy work,’’ said Siddarth Jaiswal, a third- year student
The IIT Students Association has also planned to hold meetings on RTI at every hostel to generate more awareness among the students.
M.S.Bawa, a faculty member and alumni said, ‘‘I wish I had known about this Act earlier. It is a great tool in the hands of the citizen and IITians will be proud to be part of it.’’