Kodinar(Junagadh): He has been nicknamed hawk’s eye in his village. Since 2006, Bhikhabhai Gohil, 33, a resident of Gohil ni Khan village in Kodinar taluka, has been using RTI to blow the whistle on corrupt government officials, who submit to powerful business lobbies and at the same time undermine the collective interest of villagers.
It was through RTI that he showed how irrigation department under pressure of powerful cement factory lobbies allowed a private road right through a village pond. This fact was reluctantly admitted by the state government in the assembly last year.
Today, his RTIs prove how the same cement lobbies were planning to run a massive conveyor belt by bulldozing many BPL homes built under the Indira Awas Yojana.
Gohil again shamed the local panchayat officials recently by exposing as to how houses meant for the below poverty line (BPL) were clandestinely siphoned off to non-beneficiaries. “Despite being a panchayat member, I was not allowed access to files in the office. I had to use RTI to get around them. I was taken aback when the collectorate informed us about the conveyor belt project. People should have a say in developmental activities. Are we not part of a democracy. Besides, grants and programmes meant for the poor are being enjoyed by non-beneficiaries. I simply don’t understand what these powerful lobbies get by infringing on the rights of citizens,” says Gohil. Gohil painstakingly procured information under RTI of the list of beneficiaries under the BPL scheme in Kodinar taluka and then in a separate application demanded the names of people, who were allotted the BPL houses. Thousands of names were compared in both these lists and the nonbeneficiaries tumbled out of them.
“We found that the BPL homes were not made on village lands. Some beneficiaries built homes on government lands. In many cases, beneficiaries did not submit completion certificate of houses clearly indicating that the taxpayers’ money was siphoned off for some other purpose. The government’s house upgradation scheme in our taluka is another major can of worms,’’ Gohil added.
“RTI has empowered us as we get prior information on what is actually in store for us. I am helping others in the village too to use this tool. We have learnt not to take anything hands down,” adds Gohil.
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