I first heard about Sakshi  through Geeta Gokhale of BPD  (Thanks Geeta).

What got me interested was this story about their latest “success” (below).

After reading that, I decided to do some background research on them and was impressed by what I noticed…Sakshi is slightly different than other similar organisations in the sense that it actually “trains” people on RTI. They do this via a one-day programme and have also developed a CD on step by step instructions on how to use RTI.

What really appealed to me was the suo moto declaration about themselves  that they had on their website. To me that embodies the spirit of RTI – transparency, openness and a willingness to stand up to scrutiny.

Last week I also spoke to Cyriac who heads the organisation. His dedication and enthusiasm to the cause is obvious…I would encourage you all to have a look at what they are doing…its really commendable.

*** One of “Sakshi’s Success Stories ***

Better Road for Bagepalli

Bagepalli is a small town 100kms north of Bangalore with tree lined, tarmac roads. That was until one day, the government officials thought Bagepalli would be better off with double roads & street lights.

Road works began in March 2005. Markings were done unprofessionally; dividers were built even before the roads were made making traffic movement haphazard, causing many accidents and deaths.

Thank fully for Bagepalli in November, Sakshi Trust presented an RTI workshop that Toufeeq a staffer from ADATS (An NGO), had attended. Towfeeq then used RTI to find our the real story of Bagepalli’s roads.

He says, “nearly Rs.1.32 crores were sanctioned for the road but no work was done. Of this 1.32 crores, 1.15 crores was shown as spent in response to my RTI application. We finally went and confronted the JE with the information he had and he apologized and promised to fix the road. Thanks to RTI the road work is finally being completed.”

Toufeeq is now a RTI trainer and conducts RTI training is vernacular languages like Kanada and Telugu.