This RTI-armed crusader has AMC on its toes

Mahendra Savaj has used the RTI 50 times

in his quest for facts from civic body officials

Kintu Pushpa Gadhvi. Ahmedabad(DNA)

He has become a nightmare for the corrupt at the offices of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Mahendra Savaj, 40, who was just an ordinary tailor till three years back, has, to date, asked the civic body for information under the right to information (RTI) 50 times. AMC authorities live in such dread of his RTI applications that even if a well-meaning citizen innocently asks for some information that he needs, the official concerned snaps back: "It seems Mahendra has sent you here." Savaj was not always such an obstinate crusader for information. Earlier, he was just a quiet tailor earning a simple livelihood by stitching clothes for others at his shop in Bapunagar. All this changed when a builder began illegal constructions above his shop and all his appeals for fairness fell on deaf ears. He moved the courts against the builder and also sought help from AMC officials but the builder seemed to prevail everywhere. He was about to throw in the towel when, sometime in the first half of 2006, a friend took him to a seminar on the RTI. "I have studied only till Standard 12. Earlier, I had no knowledge of the right to information," Savaj said. "But once I attended a seminar on the RTI that was organised by the city-based NGO, Janpath, I knew that I had a right to the information that official tried to hide from me." He came out of the seminar a changed man. Savaj submitted his first RTI application to the AMC in June 2006. He wanted to know about the civic body's rules governing constructions. Alarmed by his tenacity and determination to get what he wanted, certain unsavoury elements forced him to close his shop. "I was forced to give up my business by these elements but I am not tired of fighting for justice," Savaj said. His fight against the builder also continues but his concerns have now spread beyond his shuttered shop in Bapunagar. Savaj says that through the 50 applications he has submitted to the AMC so far, he has asked the civic body 250 different questions but the municipal corporation has failed to answer 80% of his queries. "After I was forced to give up tailoring, I began helping people by using the RTI to get them the information they needed. I visit one AMC office daily," Savaj said. "Every official knows me by name. Most of them are angry with me but others treat me well."