SUNSHINE FLAW

The RTI law meant to untangle India's red tape is getting some of its own, but
also changing lives.

It is just a year old and is already entangled in the same red tape it was
created to unravel. The way it's going, India's landmark sunshine law, the
Right to Information (RTI) Act seems doomed to succumb to babudom. At last
count, there were a whopping 2646 RTI applications from across the country
waiting to be addressed. In a bid to speed up the process of disbursing the
information and prevent the disempowerment of the law, the CIC office has
tied up with IBM. "This will ensure that citizens receive a quick disposal
of cases," says Central Information Commissioner's (CIC) Wajahat Habibullah.
However, the State Information Commissions, the watchdogs appointed by the
Act, remain under-manned and ill equipped.

On the flip side, the RTI Act has also displayed some success, however slow
and long-drawn the process has been. There have been encouraging instances
of a simple application throwing light on municipal and state corruption. HT
brings instances where the law has been both a roaring success as well a
dismal failure. ORISSA PENSION WITH TENSION Kokila Bewa, widow of Sankar
Naik, a Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) sweeper, waited 10 long
years for her husband's pension. Finally, she filed a RTI application. It
ran into some hurdles but cut through red tape and she got her money- with
arrears.

Bewa's problem was that she did not have a copy of her husband's service
book. She sought the relevant information, but the BMC didn't respond
properly, so she moved the first appellate authority, the Housing and Urban
Development (H&UD) authority.

They directed the BMC to furnish the service book within seven days. But the
latter ignored this order. Finally Bewa moved the State Information
Commission (CIC). Chief Commissioner DN Padhi brought up the possibility of
fining the errant officials. That did the trick and the pension of Rs 87,911
was sanctioned.

Across Orissa: The overwhelming picture is one of lack of awareness and the
reluctance of babus to divulge information. State Information Commisioner D
N Padhi admits: "30 per cent of state government officials are clueless
about RTI." The Act's functioning in the state has him "satisfied, but not
happy," he says. Appeals Decided: 99 Appeals Pending: 41 - Soumyajit
Pattnaik KARNATAKA THE RS 10 LAKH ROAD FRAUD Rama Iyengar Road in South Bangalore was a perfectly good road on which the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike
(BMP) 'spent' over Rs 10 lakh. And it was an RTI application by S R
Venkataram, president of residents' welfare association Suprajaa, which
unearthed the fraud. It revealed that the BMP paid a contractor Rs 10,76,808
for a road that was not even asphalted. The BMP, the documents revealed,
even acknowledged "satisfactory execution of work", which had never taken
place.

Across Karnataka: State Information Commissioner K A Thippeswamy says, "We
hear matters every day and dispose of each appeal or complaint in three or
four sittings. About 99 per cent of relevant applications get the
information they seek." But basic problems remain, including appointment of
Information Officers (PIOs) in some departments.

A major hindrance to RTI's smooth roll out, Thippeswamy points out, is the
public records management system. "In most cases, the staff don't know where
to find these records or if they exist at all." Appeals Decided: 202 Appeals
Pending: 179 DELHI APPLY, APPLY... NO REPLY Citizens invoking the RTI act in
Delhi say it takes anything between four to six months, and an appeals
process, before they get anywhere close to the information they're looking
for.

Consider a February 7 request filed by Rakesh Agarwal of the NGO Nyaybhoomi,
asking the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) questions about the public
works it had undertaken. "I got extremely vague answers, so I appealed to
the CIC," narrates Agarwal. "My matter came up for hearing on September 14
this year and the CIC directed the MCD to furnish the information. It is
December now and I am yet to receive the answers." Vishesh Uppal (40) has
been given a similar run-around. The World Wildlife Fund employee filed an
RTI application with the PMO, requesting to inspect the files related to the
appointment of Central Information commissioners.

Uppal says, "The PMO transferred the matter to the department of personnel
and training. The DoPT told me some information could not be shared and the
other relevant information is with the PMO. I then appealed to the CIC who
ordered the PMO to allow me to inspect the files. I was shown files from
which a lot of material had been taken out, citing 'official secrecy'. Now I
have appealed again to the CIC," she says.

Across Delhi: RTI activist Manish Sasodia, who works with the NGO
Parivartan, says, "In the last one year, the bureaucracy has devised
mechanisms that make it impossible for someone to get the required
information in the stipulated time period of one month." The Central
Information Commission, which also hears appeals from Delhi's citizens, has
over 2500 appeals pending at the moment. Appeals Decided: 2143 Appeals
Pending: 2604 - Mayank Tewari MAHARASHTRA SOFTWARE SCAM Maharashtra, by virtue of a grassroots RTI movement, and a preceding three-year-old
state-level right to information law, has seen more extensive use of the Act
than any other state.

Among the applicants are Navi Mumbai resident Sandip Thakur, who uncovered a
massive scam in allotment of land at concessional rates in Navi Mumbai. "The
plots were given to software development firms and to trusts to set up
hospitals with a certain amount of free beds for the poor. But none of these
conditions are being met on the ground," he says. The state response to the
violations has been tardy, so Thakur is now planning to move the courts.
That is the route being taken by Mumbai resident and retired executive Indur
Chuggnani too. Chhugnani extracted details of how police chowkies in the
western suburb of Khar lack municipal permissions. "The chowkies operate as
hafta collection joints, and have been sponsored by builders, whom the
police favours," he explains.

Across the State: The State Information Commission estimates that over
70,000 applications have been filed in Maharashtra since the act came into
being last October. Top on the citizen's agenda: land matters and urban
development queries.

But the state government has amazingly, appointed just one Information
Commissioner. The result: over 5000 appeals have lined up at Commissioner
Suresh Joshi's office, waiting to be heard by an office that currently
disposes a little over one appeal a day. Which means it will take 10 years
just to clear the existing backlog. Appeals Decided: 462 Appeals Pending:
5066 - Chitrangada Choudhury RAJASTHAN ALERT TALUKA RECOVERS RS 15 LAKH

Nokha taluka in Rajasthan's Bikaner district can boast of some dramatic
victories; its villages have been able to extract an estimated Rs 15 lakh of
misused public funds over the last five years.

Bhadra village's 43-year-old-Pana Devi forced the sarpanch to return Rs
46,000 that he had allocated to her under the Indira Aavas Yojna on paper
but which she never recieved. And Himmatsar's residents did not even need to
employ RTI. When they discovered the village's ration shop owner had been
diverting his PDS (Public Distribution System) wheat for sale in the open
market, they asked for copies of the distribution register. The terrified
man not only gave up his dealership, but also returned a staggering Rs 3.25
lakh to the 223 families of the village.

Jagrut Nagrik Manch Secretary Chetna Ram, whose team helped Nokha make the
RTI applications, said, "Some miscreants had attacked our social workers.
The state has filed cases against us. But the villagers continue their
crusade." Across Rajasthan: Rajasthan's State Information Commission is an
ill-equipped body with no proper staff or office. "We need to impart
training to the information officials as well as bureaucrats about their
obligation to provide applicants the required information," says Commisioner
M Dkorani.

Appeals decided: 96 Appeals pending: 194 - K S Tomar GUJARAT
FIRST HARRASMENT, THEN COMPENSATION In 2002, Ahmedabad housewife Mehmooda Biwi (54), was hurt in police firing in the minority ghetto of Juhapura. On
her release from hospital, she was shocked to find herself being arrested on
charges of rioting. She used the RTI Act this October to ask the police why
she was picked up and imprisoned for a crime she didn't commit.

The police had no reply to Mehmooda's query. Instead, constables from the
local police station came home and asked her to withdraw her application.
She refused. The result: the police are now preparing to compensate her for
the medical expenses she incurred after the firing. They still haven't
replied to her application, though.

Across Gujarat: State Information Commissioner R N Dash contends, "RTI is
being very fruitfully used by the state's citizens." His rulings have not
only fined officials for delays (up to 87 days in one case) but also ordered
reluctant officials to open up those allimportant file notings. Besides, the
SIC has rarely upheld the initial rejection of any application, say local
activists. Appeals decided: 900 Appeals pending: 600 - Rathin Das The
Bangalore Mahanagar Palike paid a contractor Rs 10,76,808 for work that was
never done on Rama Iyengar Road State Information Commissioner DN Padhi
brought up the possibility of fining the errant officials. That did the
trick and Kokila Bewa's pension was sanctioned HOW TO APPLY File your
application with the ¦ Information Officer of the concerned government
department.

If there has been no reply for ¦ a month or if the information received is
unsatisfactory, appeal to the officer's superi or. The timeline for a reply
from the superior varies across states, from one to two months.
If you are still being made to ¦ run around by officialdom, a final appeal
can be made to your state's Information Commissioner. Unfortunately, there
is no deadline set at this stage. Hence the rising number of pending cases.
Citizens are entitled to imme¦ diate access to a lot of infor mation under
the RTI Act's suo moto disclosure clause.

So you should not have to put up with delays in most cases. Visit
www.rti.nic.in for more details HELPLINES TO THE RESCUE On November 19, the
Manjunath Shanmugam Trust launched a national RTI helpline. The first
initiative of its kind, it has been started by IIM alumni in memory of 27
year-old Indian Oil Corporation engineer Manjunath, who was murdered last
November allegedly for cracking down on petrol adulteration in Uttar
Pradesh. Trustee Anjali Mullatti says, "Over 4000 calls have come in from
across India." Taking a cue, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar is in
consultation with RTI NGOs like Parivartan to start a similar helpline.

The idea is to charge a call Rs 10 - the same as for an RTI application - and
process the entire request over the phone. IN THE SWIM OF THINGS Till July
this year, the village of Chandrapur in Uttar Pradesh's Bandi district had
no electricity, no road and no bridge over its river.

Its villagers would travel eight kilometres on a kachha road and swim across the river to get to the closest highway. In July they filed an RTI application to find out what
had been done about their demands for roads and electrification. What
budgets were available to local district authorities and how they had spent
the money in the last few years, they asked. They have yet to receive an
answer to their query. But three months after their application, the village
was given electricity, an eight-kilometre road, and a bridge.

The RTI Act can move in more ways than one! The police are preparing to compensate
Mehmooda Biwi for the medical expenses she incurred after the firing Sandip
Thakur uncovered a massive scam in allotment of land at concessional rates
in Navi Mumbai.



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