CRUSADERS OF CHANGE
This village has finally tasted the power of RTI …….Viju B
Mumbai: For about two years, Suvarana Bhagyawant made rounds of the panchayat office to get her grandfathers death certificate. Every time, the official there would tell her to come later or pay a bribe of Rs 500 to get the work done.
Suvarana, a resident of the Ambhegaon village, needed the certificate so that her grandmother could apply for the widow pension scheme. Finally, Suvarana filed a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. She got the certificate within eight days.
This piece of paper is like a weapon for the powerless to fight against corrupt establishment, says Suvarana, pointing to an RTI application.
For the villagers of Ambhegaon, the RTI Act has come as long-awaited rain in a drought-prone area, where government files moved only when the villagers were ready to pay bribes.
Today, we tell the officials that if they do not look at our problems, we will file an RTI query, says Archana Bhagyawant. She was forced to file an RTI query after the officer demanded a bribe of Rs 150 for the issuance of a new ration card. I waited for a year and finally when I filed an RTI query, I got it within three weeks. The sarpanch personally delivered it at my home, said Archana.
Suvarana and Archana are part of a unique initiative begun by the Public Concern for Governance Trust (PCGT)in partnership with the Bahujan Hitay Trustthat aims to improve the quality of lives in villages in Kalyan by using RTI.
The idea was to empower every person in these villages who are above 14 years to use the Act so that they can have better basic amenities, said Julio Ribeiro, one of the founder trustees of PCGT. A team of 35 volunteers were identified from six villages and they were given training on how to use the RTI Act. We also set up an RTI information centre at Kharad village, says Shabnan Siddiqui, programme manager.
The villagers then used the Act to get more teachers appointed at two primary schools in Ambhegoan, solved the shortage of water, and got the damaged electric cable repaired. We also filed RTI queries asking for the health centres status. Now, doctors have started visiting the centre.
The initiativesupported by the Ratan Tata Trustnow aims to take it to the next level and stop corruption. We have found out that the ration shops here are always in short supply for rice and wheat. After filing an RTI query, we found out that the government agencies had distributed adequate stock. This means that pilferage is happening on a large scale. We have now complained to the prosecution agencies to take action, said Santhosh Jadhav, a Kalyanbased RTI activist