DNA: Mumbai: Sunday, December 14, 2014.
Around 25 citizens in a group listen
patiently to what is being said at St Joseph's High School, Wadala. Chandrika
Vora, a resident of Nappu Gardens, Wadala is one of them. She had come to
attend the meeting to know how exactly can citizens like her empower themselves
to receive the information they need, and get things going in their area.
Vora rued: "Our corporator just goes on
putting name plates everywhere and does not tell us anything. The ward officer
does not take meetings and he wants things to improve. These are the reasons we
attended the meeting."
Like Vora, many others gathered to be part of the
social audit local teams (SALT) that are being formed to help citizens take
stock of the work happening in the area. The initiative is the work of Mahiti
Adhikar Manch, an NGO that looks to use the RTI Act for auditing public work by
the authorities.
It encourages citizens to form small teams in
different municipal administrative wards to audit the money spent by
authorities. "The RTI Act has many sections that people are not aware of.
One of them is inspection of work done," said Bhaskar Prabhu, convenor of
the NGO.
At the meet, citizens were explained the strategic
ways in which teams can work and the steps and reasons for conducting social
audit. "At the end, there are many problems but even we are many. We can
look at them this way," said Prabhu.
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