The Indian Express: Ahmedabad: Sunday, August 30, 2015.
Ahmedabad-based
Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) will take out an ‘RTI on Wheels’ yatra in
the border districts of Barmer, Bikaner and Jaisalmer of the neighbouring
Rajasthan in the last week of September.
The idea
behind the exercise, to be carried out in collaboration with Jaisalmer-based
Taveri Vikas and Seva Sanastha (TVSS), is to create awareness among the border
people to seek information about government schemes and projects in their
areas.
The caravan
will tour major towns and villages of three districts of Thar desert with sparse
population.
MAGP
representatives Pankti Jog and Harinesh Pandya said that objective of the
week-long tour of the desert areas is to create awareness among the locals in
interior areas about RTI Act and encourage them to get information about
various developmental schemes. TVSS representative Shamsuddin Khan said that
there were a number of projects like roads and water supply lines constructed
on papers but missing actually on the ground.
Talking to
The Indian Express at the MAGP office in Ahmedabad, Khan said that the people
in border areas were mostly illiterate owing to peculiar nature of their
problems and were not in a position to question either the government officials
or the local politicians.
Khan, who
came here all the way from Jaisalmer, said that he came to know about MAGP
through some friends. Jog and Pandya said that a year ago, they had taken out a
yatra in border areas of Jammu and Kashmir and there was tremendous response.
They said that
a group had now come forward in J&K led by a former Army physician who was
training and encouraging people to use RTI to empower people.
Asked if
working in border areas was a sensitive issue, Jog and Pandya said that they
always informed the local administration and police about their programme so
that they were not in dark. “We take the administration in confidence because
there are a number of security issues involved in border areas and that can’t
be ignored,” the two RTI activists said.
MAGP has already
covered tribal areas of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh for creating
RTI awareness among the people there.
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