Your Story.com: Nagpur: Wednesday, August 23, 2017.
In our quest
to feature unsung heroes who go about their good work silently, we met Pushpa
RTI, an enthusiastic right-to-information activist who fights for transparency
in governance.
With the
Right to Information (RTI) Act coming into force in the year 2005, the country
saw many RTI activists making the most of it to demand their rights and
entitlements. Pushpa, warmly known as Pushpa RTI, is one of them. In 2003, she
set up the Bhalaswa Lok Shakti Manch, a citizens’ group working on the
outskirts of north-west Delhi to promote transparency and accountability in
local governance. Bhalaswa mostly has slum dwellers working in the informal
sector. They were forcibly evicted from Gautampuri on the Yamuna riverbank when
it was being “cleaned up” and were relocated to the Bhalaswa resettlement
colony. A swampy land, the colony was next to an urban dump where the
groundwater gets poisoned from the toxic elements from the dump leaching into
the ground.
Pushpa was
educating these slum dwellers and also raising awareness on various subjects
even before they moved to Bhalaswa. In Bhalaswa, she felt the need to move
beyond her usual activities and inspire people to take action against
corruption and the government’s complete
apathy towards their situation. The initial response from the community,
however, came as a surprise. They were new to the idea of taking up public
action against corruption. “They were a bit annoyed with the corner meetings
conducted by the manch. All my efforts to engage with them fell on deaf ears.
In a little while, some of the women began opening up to me. They narrated
their day-to-day travails regarding the lack of basic services such as running
water and electricity. They also opened up about the problems they were facing
in getting possession of the plots they had been allotted,” says Pushpa.
Claiming
their right to food supplies
Pushpa was
involved in bringing the RTI Act to force. Once the Act was passed, she taught
the people of Bhalaswa to turn to RTI for transparency of the bureaucracy so
the funds meant for citizens were not siphoned off by the officials. The manch
also began a children’s library in Bhalaswa, which is to act as a place where
the community gets together to discuss matters of concern to them. “Soon this
became a social movement. People began to use the RTI, asking for information
and demanding their entitlement. First, they tried to improve the functioning
of the ration shops that were corruption ridden,” says Pushpa. They conducted a
study of the public distribution system of the area and demanded that the
shopkeepers disclose records like the stock and sale registers. The shopkeepers
were questioned as to why they were not getting their share of ration. “The
manch started holding dialogues with the food and civil supplies department and
put together information to let them know where we were being let down. RTI
applications were also filed in the food supply department,” she says.
This was not
easy. Looking for information, they were dismayed at the way officials
intimidated and mocked them. Yet, the manch encouraged the local women to
persist. As a result, over 300 RTI applications were filed. “The appellate
process of the Central Information Commission (CIC) was resorted to whenever
the RTI response was inadequate. On one occasion, the CIC sent for top
officials. This was related to the fund allocation for roads. The PWD had no
option but to take up the work on a priority basis,” says Pushpa.
The manch had
also approached the Public Grievances Commission of Delhi regarding the
situation of water in the area. Delhi Jal Board (DJB), the Delhi Urban Shelter
Improvement Board (DUSIB), and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) are the
respondents in this case. “The manch resorts to these only after exhausting all
department channels. We maintain proper records of all our applications and
complaints. Also, we keep an eye on the utilisation of Local Area Development
funds,” she says.
Dealing
with the problem of the landfill
The Bhalaswa
landfill, one of the three main trash pile sites in the area, receives 2,200
tonnes of waste per day and has grown to a height of 41 m. This landfill was to
be covered and the area converted to a park before the Commonwealth Games of
2012. “The landfill is adjacent to the resettlement colony where the displaced
were resettled in 2002 under the pretext of beautification of the city. As with
most resettlement colonies, their living environment was anything but good. The
people were told that the landfill wouldill one day be a park but all the
garbage with its foul smell stays put over there,” says Pushpa. The landfill,
which was supposed to be shut down in 2010, is contaminating the groundwater
and the areas around it. Pushpa’s conviction that information lay at the root
of bringing about real change led her to encourage the manch to follow up with
the MCD,unicipal Corporation of Delhi which publicly owns and manages the dump.
The manch also turned to the DUSIB, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board
(DUSIB), which turned a blind eye to the risks to human health from the
landfill. The landfill, which has not been designed as per standards, adjoins
Bhalaswa lake, which is getting contaminated. The manch keeps highlighting the
menace of the landfill by approaching the elected representatives from time to
time through meetings or petitions.
Attempts are
underway to create a waste management facility that could combust waste to
produce electricity to be sold to businesses and municipalities. These
alternative waste treatment processes, recognised as toxic activities by the
Kyoto Protocol, are being pushed through on the pretext of reducing methane
emissions. The manch has been opposing this as a part of the Bhalaswa
residents’ struggle for clean water.
Claiming
the right to water and sanitation
The vigilant
citizenry based on the RTI built by the Lok Shakti Manch broke new ground by
using the Act for claiming the right of the urban poor to water and sanitation.
Bhalaswa was faced with an acute water problem even when it received water from
the DJB’s piped water supply, hand pumps, borewells (both DJB and private
borewells), as well as tankers. Yet, there is no regular provisioning of clean
drinking water in the colony. The number of public stand posts for drinking
water was inadequate and tankers were irregular. Due to the lack of piped water
supply, people were often forced to drink groundwater, which was unfit for
human consumption.
A signature
campaign was initiated by the manch and a complaint lodged with the DJB, which
works with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). After a lot of struggle,
citizens succeeded in bringing tanker water supply to the area. The manch is
now fighting on the issue of leachate in groundwater, which is a threat to
human health.
Pushpa has
also been questioning the installation of water ATMs in Delhi. She wonders if
the water ATMs are able to provide safe and clean drinking water to the poor at
a low cost. Recently in Delhi, several issues of accountability and violations
of the DJB Act, 1988 related to the selection of the companies responsible for
installing water ATMs were raised. Pushpa had in 2014–15 sought information
from the DJB about the progress on the installation of water ATMs in Delhi. The
response indicated that the people living in resettlement colonies were opposed
to the concept of ATMs and wanted household water connections because they had
both drinking and domestic water needs. Clearly, water ATMs were unable to
cater to those needs.
Not just
this, the manch is also fighting for the safe disposal of a large amount of
waste from the households and the streets that is being strewn around the
colony, posing a threat to public health. The kabadiwalas (waste collectors)
are compelled to sift through these urban dumps to earn their living in severely
dirty, often dangerous, conditions.
Influential
people continue to intimidate and threaten, but Pushpa continues with her work
as usual. With information as the keystone, Pushpa, through the Bhalaswa Lok
Shakti Manch, has been empowering the community to demand what is rightfully
theirs and to plug the gaps in transparency and accountability.
.JPG)
.JPG)
