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Getting information from government offices has never been easy and it is no different in the young state of Jharkhand. It was only at the mercy of the government officials that citizens could have the access to information. But now the Right to Information law has given citizens the right to demand information, and if someone is determined, they can have it. This can actually help to expose various scams. In Jharkhand, this has become evident as a result of the attempts by the team of Prabhat Khabar Institute of Media Studies (PKIMS), Ranchi.
The Jharkhand Assembly has a well-furnished Guest House having 30 air-conditioned rooms at the Assembly campus. The rooms are being booked for VIPs and eminent persons as well as for politicians, social workers, journalists, etc. The room rent for EX-MLAs, MPs etc., is Rs 100.00 per day and for others, it is Rs 300.00. The whole amount received from the guesthouse has to be deposited in the state's treasury according to the rules.
But information collected through RTI reveals that only a very small amount has been deposited in the treasury during last five years. Nobody knows where the rest of the money has gone. Shakti Pandey, a young journalist working with PKIMS applied for the details. People were surprised to know that only Rs 30000 was deposited in the year 2004 and only Rs 32800 in the year 2005 (up to 7 December). Even on the basis of a layman's calculation, this amount should be Rs 20 lakhs or more. Thanks to the RTI law, massive corruption in the House of people's representatives has been exposed.
Another scam that has come to light has been the faking of names in a muster roll in Palamu. A pond in Raqngaiya village of Manatu block was to be renovated under the "Food for Work" scheme. The state government started the renovation work there under the said scheme but the villagers had doubts about the wages and other expenses of this work. To clear their doubts they applied for the muster roll under RTI, and ultimately they received the information. To the utmost surprise of the villagers it was found that the entire list was fake. The names of the workers and their fathers' names were also wrongly written. Some names in the list were repeated several times. This has indicated the state of corruption in the implementation of the 'Food for Work' scheme.
Registration of 160 NGOs without having proper or full address is another irregularity that has been exposed through RTI. Kumari Sarita from PKIMS applied for the list of NGOs registered in Jharkhand. She got the entire list, which surprisingly revealed that 160 NGOs were registered without proper address, of 1343 registered in total during last five years.
A team of three-dozen students of PKIMS are currently engaged in extracting information using RTI from various government departments. There is now hope for more and more exposes.
Vishnu Rajgadia
Vishnu Rajgadia is Director, Prabhat Khabar Institute of Media Studies
HB Road, Kokar, Ranchi, Jharkhand. Prabhat Khabar is a Hindi language daily.
Tel: 0943-1104424.
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RTI vs Corruption: this time, it's Jharkhand
Vishnu Rajgadia
16 January 2006
16 Jan 2006
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Thanks for highlighting the succuss story of Prabhat Khabar regarding Right to Information. We have also initiated a HELPLINE for the people of Jharkhand to Help in exercising their Right to Information. We will provide all legal help totally free. Our email address is rti@yahoo.co.in.
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