Moneylife: Srikrishna Kachave: Mumbai: Tuesday, April 24, 2018.
After the strenuous and persistent efforts taken by several leading Right to Information (RTI) activists, the #RTIBachao campaign has started yielding concrete results. The Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation is the latest municipal corporation to join Navi Mumbai Municipal Corp (NMMC) and Thane Municipal Corp (TMC) in agreeing to comply with the provisions of Section 4 of the RTI Act and upload online all queries asked by citizens and replies provided to them by public information officers (PIOs) under the Act.
Pune Municipal Corp (PMC) was the first to have initiated this move a couple of years ago, but it has not bothered to keep the information up-to-date. This only means that activists will need to keep a constant vigil to ensure that the intentions of the municipal bodies are turned into action and that uploading of information continues over time.
RTI activists led by Shailesh Gandhi, former Central Information Commissioner, have argued that the issue of people using RTI to blackmail municipal officials gets nullified when legitimate information is posted on the municipal websites – after all, it is public information and nobody can be blackmailed for doing the right thing. This happened when several municipal corporations, including Mumbai had begun to allege that RTI activists were using information obtained under the Act to blackmail officers and builders. What they failed to say was that blackmail was only possible when something illegal occurred and was sought to be hidden.
The #RTIBachao campaign was initiated at Moneylife Foundation on 7 February 2018 under leadership of Mr Gandhi along with scores of RTI activists and concerned citizens. Activists such as Vijay Kumbhar, Navin Agarwal, Sunil Ahya, Krishna Gupta and Mahesh Bangera took it forward by campaigning for disclosure of information.
“The focus of #RTIBachao campaign was to seek respect towards RTI users and activists in getting the RTI queries and responses displayed on the website under Section 4 of RTI Act,” Mr Gandhi had said.
According to him, the whole idea for this campaign was to set an example in society of ’how the democracy works. He says, “Citizens elect the government in a democracy and the government ought to maintain transparency and remain accountable to its citizens.”
And as it is evident that the objective of working this experiment of democracy by contacting elected representatives and convincing them is actually working.
Navi Mumbai Municipal Corp became the first to implement the requests made under the #RTIBachao campaign. NMMC chief Dr N Ramaswami agreed to implement the solution provided under the campaign and issued appropriate order (See link below):
Thane Municipal Corporation soon followed the path and its Commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal also joined in strengthening of implementation of RTI Act.
Thane Police also joined the campaign. Thane’s Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP-administration wing) Makarand Ranade issued a circular asking PIOS to show courtesy while dealing with RTI users.
Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corp also accepted the demands of #RTIBachao campaign and has issued a circular to upload details of RTI applications and replies on its website.
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on the other end has taken few steps towards transparency, but still needs to make some improvisations. Noted civic and RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar from Pune says, “PMC uploads RTI first appeals on their website. However, there is no uploading of RTI applications and even the uploading of RTI appeals is not regularly done. It is just that, only after a proper follow-up is made, then they upload the appeals. There are some technical glitches also involved like, at certain times, a particular web page will open whereas at times, it won’t.” (See link below):
Mr Gandhi says, “We should aim to spread this to other municipal bodies in Maharashtra and this is the first step towards active citizenship in working of democracy. We will now monitor the implementation of these directives by vigilance, commitment and polite reminders and even request others to join or support us in this campaign.”
As the campaign is now gaining momentum, we expect that the civic bodies make suo-motu disclosure of information under Sec. 4 of RTI Act and also the citizens support this initiative to bring transparency and accountability in governance.
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