The RTI guru

By Gayatri Nair Bangalore Mirror TOI

Posted On Thursday, April 29, 2010

A techie empowers his neighbours by teaching them about the landmark act and how to file an application

Deveshwar has been conducting classes on Saturdays and Sundays since March 21 to educate people about the RTI Act and its uses.

"Basically, I have been extremely active in the affairs of my apartment, Fern Saroja, in L B Shastri Nagar. One of the main things that prompted me to start these courses was that whenever something went wrong, residents would have complaints against the corporation and other local bodies. But no solutions. That's when I thought RTI would help," said the 38-year-old techie.

NEVER TOO LATE

Soon, Deveshwar realised that residents didn't use RTI because of lack of awareness of the landmark act. That's where the classes came in. They last for about an hour and aim to answer all doubts regarding the act.

"During these sessions, I give a brief description about the act, examples of the act, I tell them how to find the Public Information Officer (PIO) and how to draft RTI questions. I also provide templates, and some examples of RTIs I've filed. The basic idea is to enable people to solve their own problems through RTI," he said.

"Each class has about three to four people. Around 10 to 15 people have attended the classes so far and of these, three have taken recourse to RTI," he said.

The classes will end on May 15 after which they will be revived only if there is a demand by residents. "Moreover, there is enough and more information on my website http://deveshwar.in/RTI. So even if about 10 people have attended the classes, there are a number of them who have benefited from the website," said Deveshwar, who shifted to Bangalore from Delhi in 1995.