DNA: Mumbai: Monday, April 03, 2017.
In a bid to
make information about cooperative housing societies transparent and more accessible,
you may soon be approached to give suggestions for the same. A member of a
state government-appointed committee, who is working to bring cooperative
housing societies as a separate chapter under the ambit of the Maharashtra
Cooperatives Act, 1960, will be posing questions to citizens in a series of
meetings that are planned across the city.
Suggestions
will be sought to analyse the feasibility and extent of various aspects of the
RTI act that can be incorporated into the Maharashtra Cooperatives Act.
Keeping in
mind rapid urbanisation and the increasing number of cooperative housing
societies, the government in February formed a 10-member committee to include a
separate chapter of cooperative housing societies under the Maharashtra
Cooperatives Act. This was done because the functioning and problems of
cooperative housing societies are distinct from other societies, and are often
not addressed.
Ramesh
Prabhu, one of the two non-government members in the committee, will engage
with citizens to know what their views are and take suggestions. "Among
the issues or complaints we receive, the most common complaint is that of
members not being given enough information by their societies. To address this
problem, we feel that societies should either come under the ambit of RTI Act
to the extent that only society members can seek information," said
Prabhu, who is also the chairman of Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association
(MSWA) that claims to have 30,000 housing societies as its members.
The committee
members are supposed to study various laws to address the issue of transfer of
land, redevelopment, day-to-day functioning of cooperative housing societies,
and how the interest of societies can be best served. "Members can get
information as per the Societies Act,
but most of the times it is not provided. They want details on redevelopment,
the number of offers for redevelopment, among other information. The
cooperative housing society movement is a grass-root level democratic set up.
There should be transparency," said Prabhu.
Chayya
Ajgaonkar, another member of Mumbai Housing Federation said, "Incorporation
of RTI on societies is not feasible. The committee will eventually take a call
but I do not think that should be the case."
"RTI as
such is a broad term. Why should a person living in one society know what the
other society is doing. We are framing rules and whether RTI or not, floodgates
of information will be opened for members of society. We will expand the
definition of information that can be provided under the Society Act,"
said a senior member of the state government-appointed committee.
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