A great model of good governance
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. Toufeeq 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.
UPDATE: I have since sponsored their RTI Guide for Improving the Urban Environment. It can also be downloaded from here: https://www.box.net/shared/8zppxfc6og
Thanks Shantanu
Great news. Atleast India is functioning now. We were waiting for this change from long time and now its happening. Thanks to RTI.
Dear sir
Though RTI creates an extra bureaucracy it has given the strength to the people or i would say “motivation ” to ask questions.
Main problem with the people is that they dont ask qeustions and accept the things as it is until it is not disturbing to their day to day life.
Though we agreed that transparency in the government is the need of an hour we need a strong legislation to make this dream come true.And to make this legislation we need people who will fight for the larger interest of the society.
But this process is going to take substantial time till then the onus has to be carried by the citizens to solve their problems on their own.
Atleast it will create a spark in the society that if we dont act now then it will be too late.
Let them practise to fight against the government through RTI.
If we can spend around 40K crore(approx) on MNREGA then why not on extra bureaucracy which is empowering the citizens and teaching them to think on their own.