AID Pilani Chapter

We are a group of students who started using the Right to Information act to tackle various issues plaguing the local people of Pilani and the surrounding villages.

We drew inspiration from a talk by Santosh Jha of Parivartan, an NGO fighting against corruption in Delhi, to work in this direction, during April '08. This lecture was organized by the student groups of NSS-BITS-Pilani, Nirmaan and Rotaract which have been working consistently for social causes.

Our personal zeal and enthusiasm took us on trips where we learnt many things about the ground reality in the villages of Rajasthan, the suffering of these people and also the way people live their lives which gave more impetus to our drive.

Various RTI applications filed:

We filed a number of applications invoking RTI act pertaining to various issues like the

• ‘Black Marketing’ involved in the Ration Supplies System.
• The excess amount taxed from a person who is unable to produce important documents (license, permit, etc) due to the presence of 'unauthorized' middlemen.
• Pathetic state of roads and garbage disposal system in nearby areas.
• Poor lighting in the streets resulting in accidents.
• Negligence on part of authorities in maintaining the cleanliness of the bus stand.

Framing questions for RTI applications:

We are not afraid to admit that we committed many mistakes in framing questions which we attribute to our amateurish approach but our pride lies in the fact that we learnt a lot from the initial mistakes. We came to know of the folly of assuming that government officials are well versed with the act in the process of our first application itself.

We are still in the process of improvisation and innovation in the art of forming questions which would help the people in this area and relieve them from corruption the system is suffering from.

Ignorance on the part of government officials:

We had to open the act and show a particular official who was designated to accept our application, of the rules and regulations and his duties. This was in regard to the part of the act which asks every public information officer (PIO) to forward the application to the concerned authorities in case the application received by him/her does not concern the department of which this officer is the PIO.

We had this initial difficulty as we assumed that things would be like they are in Delhi where NGO's have been employing the act since its inception which has led to even the government officials to be aware and vigilante about their responsibilities and duties in regard to the RTI act.

Points of learning:

In the applications filed on the ration and food supplies system to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) population, we first faced stiff resistance from the authorities in providing us information which would have helped us in exposing the fallacies present in the system, after the first application where we had asked for the subsidies announced by the government for the BPL. In the 30 days, which is the maximum time in which the information is to be provided, we went out and conducted several surveys. At the end of the survey we had the information about what the BPL people deserve and they actually get. There was a big mismatch in the data collected from people in surveys and that obtained from Government in response to Applications sent. After comparison we went about the task of forming questions to get the officers to give the BPL what they were supposed to get.

Spreading awareness among BITSians:

We had even filed an RTI on matters in relation to B.I.T.S, Pilani which is mentioned as a public authority on its main home page. This resulted in arousing interest among many students on this tool which is a wonderful instrument, which if used properly would help to if not eradicate, at least curtail corruption.

Aiming for amendments in the information providing machinery:

In the whole process we found a few things which we personally as taxpaying citizens of India found unacceptable. For example, the postal envelopes which were sent to us requesting the money order of very meagre amounts ranging from 2-6 rupees had postal stamps of 20 to 30 rupees affixed to them. In regard to this, we wrote to the State Information Commission asking them to look into such matters of importance to the running of the mechanism of RTI which involves people getting a right to have a check on the money they pay as tax which the government is using.

Great aspirations:

We are hoping that in the next 2 years we will be able to make a difference to the people and rid them of the problems being faced due to the negligence, carelessness or corruption of the government officials.

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Mohseen

AID-Pilani