Meet brings together 250 RTI users from across Gujarat

Source:Caroline Andrade / DNA
Thursday, March 18, 2010 10:18 IST


Ahmedabad: The RTI is perhaps the most useful weapon

that the common man can yield against any authority. A state-level three hour

long RTI convention organised on Wednesday and attended by

around 250 RTI users from Gujarat, saw participants discuss how

they used the Right to Information Act to expose loopholes and

inefficiency of the system.



The  convention was held in Paldi. Arvind Kejriwal of Parivartan India,
Harinesh Pandya, secretary of Janpath and founder of Mahiti Adhikar,
Gujarat Pahel and Prof Jagdeep Chhokar, Association for Domestic
Reforms ADR, were also present at the event.

Deepak Patel of Gujarat state primary teachers' association said that he
used RTI to seek details about teachers in all schools of Gujarat.

"But I was given details of only 600 schools. I then identified the non-qualified
teachers in these schools and also found that the district education officers
were not carrying out proper inspection in schools," said Patel.

Patel then filed a complaint with the information commissioner, RN Das
which in turn sent a notice to the state government. "The government clearly
stated that it was the duty of the DEO to carry out inspections. In response,
the DEO said that they were short-staffed. The RTI application also brought
to fore the fact that some reports were prepared by the DEO without any
official actually carrying out the inspection," said Patel.

Vinod Pandya of Gujarat state Talimi Snatak also came across many
loopholes in the education system after he filed an RTI application
seeking information about private primary schools and non qualified
teachers."I asked for a full data for Ahmedabad district and city schools
and in the process got to know that 70% teachers were non-qualified
. I also learned that in 95% of the cases, the teachers were not being
paid proper salary and even their provident funds were not in order,"
said Pandya.

Pandya later filed a PIL in the high court and the government promised
to sack non qualified teachers. "However, even after 2 years nothing
has happened," said Pandya.

Girish Vishrambhai Dodia of Surat, son of a slain RTI activist
, Vishrambhai Dodia said his father lost his life due to a fight
between an electricity company and the police department.
"He had filed an RTI petition seeking inquiry against illegal
electricity connection that involved a whole lot of influential
people of the city," said Dodia.