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By Suparna Bhattacharya The Pune Municipal Corporation's public information office receives at least 10 Right to Information applications a day. Who are the citizens contributing to this flurry of activity? Are these applications indicative of the success of the recent legislation and the RTI movement?
On any average morning, the public information office (PIO) in Pune, Maharashtra , is a flurry of activity, with roughly 420 Right To Information (RTI) applications on record since April 2005. An estimated 10 applications come in every working day. Businessman Mustan Sojitrawala has used the RTI on a number of occasions, and is left with a bitter aftertaste. He has been filing applications under the Maharashtra Right to Information (MRTI) Act since 2002, and has been writing articles in various newspapers to reach out to people. Although he did get responses from the PIO to his queries regarding unauthorised construction and regularisation under the gunthewari scheme, he is dissatisfied with the information, which, he says, is half-baked and evasive. He has followed his applications up to Mantralaya (administrative headquarters of the state government), but claims that he was shocked when he was falsely implicated in a case of assault by a local corporator and put in judicial custody for a day-and-a-half. “It is no wonder,” he says, “that a majority of people prefer to keep away from using this right, which has been so hard-won.”
Then there’s Madhuri Sahasrabuddhe who belongs to a family of entrepreneurs and is the founder-director of the Balranjan Kendra in Bharati Niwas Society, Pune. Sahasrabuddhe has filed numerous applications relating to land, cooperative societies and public amenities. But, she alleges, even the PIO has found ways to exploit procedural loopholes, use convoluted language, delay applications and generally obfuscate matters in a bid to discourage applicants. Meaningful information can only be extracted if a person persists despite his patience being stretched to the limit, she says. Sahasrabuddhe complains that her applications have been rejected on more than one occasion because she worded her request as a question -- apparently the way to get around this is to turn the question into a statement. For example: “Why has the approach road to the municipal school in ward number 25 been blocked?” should read: “I would like to know why the approach road to the municipal school in ward number 25 has been blocked.” Likewise, 48-year-old, self-employed Chandrashekhar Jadhav is disappointed with the implementation of the MRTI -- in itself, a “very strong weapon”. Jadhav is not very highly educated but he shows a motivation that few middle class people are able to sustain. “What no leader in the 60 years following Independence has been able to give the common man, this legislation seeks to deliver in one master stroke,” Jadhav says. He has been working tirelessly, filing RTI applications for himself and on behalf of others on issues where the poor bear the brunt of official misappropriation and denial of crucial information. He tells of a case where a six-year-old boy was electrocuted in Pune’s JJ Garden. The authorities, he claims, attempted to hush up the matter by handing the father a sum of Rs 25,000. Although the onus rested on the contractor, the electrical inspector and the electrical engineer, no action was taken. Jadhav claims to be in possession of a lot of evidence of corruption in state administration. He cites cases of builder-contractor nexus in build-operate-transfer (BOT) deals, forceful extraction of money from students at Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) schools, unsanctioned land transfers by political leaders and their beneficiaries, and property acquired in the name of dead people. He has been following these cases up with the collectorate and zilla parishad. The problem of evasion of responsibility by government agencies and the authorities requires urgent redressal, according to Jadhav. Legal confusion should be the last factor to act as a stumbling block in the right to information movement. For instance, Jadhav claims the Pune Cantonment Board refused him information, stating that it did not fall under state government regulations; but Jadhav has a copy of the central gazette, which places the cantonment board under the purview of the MRTI Act. Not all applicants are cynical, though. Raghunath Parab, a lawyer who visited the PMC on behalf of Madhumilind Housing and Construction Co Pvt Ltd, in Mumbai, is happy with the way the MRTI Act is being implemented. The housing company he represents owns property in Pune and wanted information on compensation for land acquisition by the PMC, and the names of eligible developers in Pune for a slum development project planned in the city. In fact, the company has used the provisions of the MRTI Act to access public information on a number of occasions, and has been satisfied with the information provided. Parab testifies that details like plans and expenditure break-up have all been provided when requisitioned.
According to the Pune Municipal Corporation’s public information officer Arun Patil, almost all the RTI applicants have been provided the information they seek, although he is a bit vague about the exact figures. All applications are preserved carefully in the PMC’s records and are made available to the public if required. A little probing reveals that nearly 50% of the enquiries relate to urban development, illegal construction, encroachments and related infrastructural issues. These are forwarded to the city engineer. Around 10% of applications deal with taxes, while the rest relate to slums, water supply, octroi, road development, land acquisition, municipal schools, etc.
The applications range from the amenities provided in slums, number of saplings planted by the PMC within the last 10 years, the purchase of computers by the PMC, illegal land sanctions, non-payment of compensation for property acquisition and cases pending against the PMC in various courts. Pune Municipal Corporation deputy PIO, Vasant Kharpudikar, admits that most government departments are extremely uncooperative when information is asked for by unofficial agencies. Hence the need to back up RTI applications with the appointment of a PIO in every government office. The PIO is liable to disciplinary action if he does not furnish the required information. The PIO can also be fined Rs 250 per day for any delay, according to the rules of the Maharashtra Right To Information Act. Thus, Kharpudikar says, the PIO is bound to carry out his duties. Kharpudikar points out that often people repeatedly invoke the MRTI Act -- sometimes between two to five applications at a time -- on various issues of public concern. This presents a skewed picture, with the statistics pointing to increased use of the MRTI Act, while actual awareness about the legislation and its reach remains low. Still, it can be said with a reasonable degree of certainty that the MRTI Act has been successful. Not so much for reasons of procedural efficacy but due to the sheer strength of its mobilisation and effective use by the people. (Suparna Bhattacharya is a Pune-based student who works with the Centre for Communication and Development Studies) InfoChange News & Features, August 2005 |
