One year of RTI: Success stories

A 70-old-woman gained access to files regarding pension and other benefits of her dead son ? a Delhi Police constable who died in a road accident five years ago.

Updated on: Oct 11, 2006, 13:53:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In Haryana

A 70-old-woman gained access to files regarding pension and other benefits of her dead son — a Delhi Police constable who died in a road accident five years ago. Laxmi Devi of Bhiwani district had appealed to the Central Information Commission for access to notings in files pertaining to her son’s terminal benefits worth Rs 4 lakh. Laxmi was penniless after her son Anoop Singh’s death. Her daughter-in-law was drawing pension even after her remarriage in August 2005, Laxmi Devi told the panel.

In Karnataka

It was a unique combination of the right to information and the right to food. Villagers received their quota of ration through the Public Distribution System after villagers of Channagiri Taluka forced authorities to conduct public hearings to redress their grievances by filing RTI petitions. The villagers were not getting wheat for Rs 2 and rice at Rs 3 as announced by the state government.

In Mumbai

A resident of Borivili, Devraj Roy, filed an application under RTI asking for information about various projects announced by the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation. He found that most of the schemes were either on paper or had progressed marginally. But the officials had spent Rs 36 crore on hotel accommodation and in air-fare to foreign destinations. It jolted the officials.

In Delhi

The government cut a sorry figure when RTI activist Shekhar Singh moved the CIC demanding information on how far the government had progressed in granting 20 per cent reservation to students from the economically weaker section in private schools.

The CIC said the government had failed to furnish “full information” on 40 applications.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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