Gujarat govt refuses to part with information.

The Times of India:Friday, December 23, 2011.

GANDHINAGAR: Did the Gujarat government misinform Parliament regarding the number of Dalit agricultural workers who were given land between 2007 and 2010?

There is reason to believe this, if a right to information (RTI) application by Jignesh Mewani of Ahmedabad is examined. Mewani wanted to know three sets of details from the state revenue department - names of landless agricultural workers who have been handed over land during this period; districts, talukas and villages to which these landless workers belonged; and rules and procedures that the landless should follow in getting land under the land reforms laws.

The application, significantly, was made on the basis of data provided in the Rajya Sabha by Union minister of state for rural development Shishir Kumar Adhikari.

Giving state-wise details of the number of Dalits who were handed over land, the Union minister in his written reply, dated November 11, 2010, had said that in Gujarat 56,873 acres of land was distributed to landless Dalits between 2007-08 and 2009-10 out of 2.97 lakh acres in the country as a whole. Other states which released big chunks of lands to Dalits included Chhattisgarh ( 94,241 acres) and Maharashtra (1,10,362 acres).

Mewani, who wrote he was making his application in "public interest", said in his request, first made on January 1, 2011, that Rajya Sabha was provided information about the acreage given to the Dalit landless.

"Hence, it should not be difficult to provide the information under the RTI Act, on who have been given land, including their names, addresses and the date on which the land was given," he said.

First, the Gujarat government did not give any information, except the rules and procedures under which land could be handed over. When the RTI applicant went into appeal, he was told to get the information from district collectors, as the state revenue department "doesn't have the information."

Mewani, a senior volunteer with an NGO fighting for the poor, told TOI, "It is difficult to understand why the state government doesn't have at least district-wise information of the number of agricultural workers handed overland during 2007-10. It gave the information to the Rajya Sabha in answer to a question by MP Pravin Rashtrapal. It must have obtained the information from different districts before giving it to Parliament."

Mewani wondered if the Gujarat government did not provide correct information to Parliament. "If it has the information, why is it hiding it?" With the information in hand, we can go to the individual agricultural workers to find out if they have got the land which the government claims it has given. If not, we propose to stand by them and fight for them", he said.