The
Indian Express: Jaipur: Monday, September 16, 2019.
On
September 13, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot launched a “Jan Soochna
Portal” aimed at easing the access to information for the beneficiaries of
welfare schemes. The portal has been created by the Department of Information
Technology and Communication(DoIT&C) in collaboration with civil society.
It realises the true intent behind Section 4(2) of the Right to Information
(RTI) Act of 2005. In essence, this section requires public authorities to
proactively that is, suo moto disclose information so that beneficiaries do not
have to run from pillar to post trying to figure out what went wrong and how to
set it right.
No
wonder, 60-year-old Balulal Gurjar, a resident of Thana village in Bhilwara
district, is enthused to hear of this portal. For the past few years, Gurjar
has accompanied many fellow villagers to government offices, inquiring about
their old-age pension entitlement that hadn’t been credited in their accounts.
In recent years, thousands of pension beneficiaries of Rajasthan have protested
after their names were struck off from the government list on account of their
“death” even though they were alive. “For many months, we were kept in dark as
there was no way to know what had really happened. Had there been a Jan Soochna
Portal back then, it would have been easy for us to know what had gone wrong,”
says Gurjar.
At
present, the portal has information about 23 government schemes and services
from 13 departments which the public can access with just one click on their
computers, mobiles or kiosks installed in villages.
Activist
Nikhil Dey from the Soochna Evam Rozgar Abhiyan and Mazdoor Kisan Shakti
Sangathan (MKSS) says that before this initiative the provisions of Section
4(2) of the RTI Act were not implemented properly.
“We
realised that the government is gathering a lot of information and hiding them
behind admin laws. We wanted to build a janta information system where reports
are generated useful to people. Governance has to be a joint effort,” says Dey,
who has consulted and collaborated with (DoIT&C) officials on the various
features of the portal.
How
Rajasthan improved RTI
Since
the 1990s, Rajasthan has always played a central role in improving public
access to information. The latest initiative requires the government to
disclose a lot of information related to government schemes on its own, thus
making it easy for the common man. By streamlining and centralising
information, the portal also prevents anomalies and corruption.
The
portal aims to create a streamlined system for public information to prevent
anomalies and corruption. Information about several schemes such as Ayushman
Bharat Mahatma Gandhi Rajasthan Swasthya Bima Yojana, which provides free
health insurance to beneficiaries has been uploaded to ensure that there is no
mismatch between the amount listed as an expense by a hospital while treating a
patient and the money it actually charges. Earlier, the previous government’s
flagship scheme Bhamashah Swasthya Bima Yojana had witnessed many cases where
higher expenses were falsely shown by hospitals.
The
effort to create a centralised information database for the public in Rajasthan
started last year when civil society members interacted with the government and
gave their suggestions on policy issues as part of an initiative known as
Digital Dialogue. “We told the government that whatever information you have
you give it to the public without any hindrance. We also asked them to organise
it in a way so that it is useful for people. This initiative converts a culture
of secrecy into a culture of openness,” says Dey.
The
launch of the portal is likely to result in centralising information about
government schemes on one website and prove beneficial to the public by
obviating the need to go through a tedious RTI application process to know
more.
One
can get land records and documents from the portal that earlier could only have
been accessed through patwaris. Under the new process, one has to enter village
and district details to know who owns a piece of land. Similarly, for mining, a
sector where widespread corruption has been unearthed in past instances such as
the Rajasthan mining scam of 2015, the flow of information in the public domain
has been made more transparent.
The
state currently has a network of around 68,500 e-mitra kiosks in villages that connect
villagers to a number of state-run beneficiary schemes. The government has
announced that it is also developing a mobile app and will install self-service
portals in villages so that people can access the Jan Soochna Portal easily and
get the information they require. “This portal will play a very big role in
serving the people in villages. Information should be provided even before it
is asked for and that is what this portal aims to do. The government will
provide complete encouragement for this,” said Gehlot.