DNA: Mumbai: Saturday, August 20, 2016.
The landmark
Right to Information (RTI) Act, which has over six million (60 lakh) users in
the country, has made governments recognise their own mistakes, said Aruna Roy,
leading RTI activist and social worker.
Roy was in
city on Friday to launch the annual lecture series in the memory of late
Narayan Varma, an RTI activist. She was speaking at the KC College auditorium.
Soon after, awards were given to those who have worked in the field of the RTI
Act.
The lecture
series and awards were started by the Bombay Chartered Accounts Society, Dharma
Bharati Mission and Public Concern for Governance and Trust, of which Varma was
part of or associated with.
Calling the
RTI Act as an initiative of not the "middle class but working class",
she delved on its capacity to audit the government. The RTI Act, she said,
happened due to demand of people for information to have accountability and
transparency. "Without that their lives would have been in shambles. There
was a time when there was no information on accounts. We did not know what is
there. Now that has changed. It has changed the power equation," said Roy.
She added,
"There was a time when questioning did not exist. People who questioned were
given all sorts of names from Maoists to now terrorists. RTI in essence is the
process of auditing and it has brought in social audit where in government has
to listen because we tell them what they have shown us."
She also
spoke about the series of attempts previous government made to amend the RTI
Act. "Over 10 lakh signatures went against it," she said adding that
the scope of social audit through RTI increased its ambit with the Comptroller
and Auditor General (CAG) forming a committee which now looks to access if the
public funds were used in the right place.
Roy said that
the political class which has still not brought itself under ambit of RTI is
still wary of it. "We wanted all those who get public funds be it
political parties or NGOs to be brought under the RTI Act. Now the government
has come out with a law to check NGO funding," said Roy.
"The
government promised us a lot of things but not given them. Although I do not
agree to the popular narrative that nothing happened in India except for the
last two years, there is much more to come," said Roy.
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