Thursday, December 25, 2008

RTI - part 2

Some information that is not about RTI, but it was available from case studies explained by Maj Gen (reted) SCN Jatar.

Literate - anyone who can sign in his / her mother tongue, based on this definition our country has 65% literacy.

Signs of corruption:
1. delayed decision
2. lack of transparency
3. hasty/rapid decision approvals (last minutes proposals)

Habituated corruption - some people do the same thing over and over again in spite of being caught.

Newspapers / media want news of corruption from new people every time. If the information is about old corruption or person, it is treated as stale news and is not accepted / published.

Pune people pay 44 lakhs extra every month for water supply.

BRT - Costly Volvo buses bought even though there wasn't any requirement. AC is ineffective because of the bus stops at each 200 - 300 mtrs. Earlier Tata buses were recommended which are much cheaper, but the decision was changed within 1 week and unwanted AC buses were bought.

MLAs go to parliament for collecting DATA (Dearness Allowance / Travelling Allowance) :D

[When Mr. Jatar was asked if you get threatened, he said smiling, he gets friendly threats like, people ask him why does he do all this, he is an old man now, we will settle this within us, etc.]

Part 3 : Why did I attend that seminar and my thoughts about RTI

6 comments:

  1. Hi Vivek,

    Are you going to add one more post regarding RTI? When?

    Do you have any contact details of Mr. Jatar / Mr. Sonawane? I want to ask them 1 question.

    Thanks
    - A.V.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi A.V.

    I've added the post RTI - part 3 : my thoughts (http://vnaunleashed.blogspot.com/2009/01/rti-part-3-my-thoughts.html)

    I had been busy for the last whole week, so couldn't add it any earlier. Thanks for keeping track of my blog :)

    I don't have direct contact info of Mr. Jatar / Mr. Sonawane.
    But Mr. Sonawane is RTI Program Officer of PCGT, so you should be able to contact him through PCGT:

    Public Concern for Governance Trust, Pune Chapter RTI Cell
    Tel No: 020-64005613
    email: pcgtpune@rediffmail.com
    website: http://www.pcgt.org

    Hope this helps you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Vivek,

    Thanks a lot for the details. I'll surely contact PCGT for my queries.

    - A.V.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think, having a portal for diff governments is a good idea where anyone can find out the information or any related link for every single thing related to govt.
    I searched it for Uttarakhand govt in the govt portal http://www.uttara.in/ and searched for RTI. Surprisignly, I got the link http://www.uttara.in/hindi/rti/intro.html and I guess it is helpful to some extent.

    At the same time, I also got the info that there is a fee of Rs 10.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tonnet,
    as per RTI, gov organizations are supposed to proactively disclose the information. (I'm not sure how much detailed info.) So each state and central gov will have RTI section on their respective sites.

    But my observation is that, these pages are having just static information and most of the times the information will be same on all these sites. For eg, the RTI act, the procedure to apply for information etc.

    I personally think there is a need of a site where the information asked by any person will be available to everyone. And it should not be like different sites for different governments / gov organizations. It should be "only 1 site" where all the information will be available.

    For that matter even the static sites don't have search facility. So even though information is there, its difficult to find. :(

    ---
    A.V.,
    Sorry for late reply. I'm glad I could help.
    Btw, is this (Ardhavatrav Vichare) your real name? Sorry, but the 2 words sound contradictory, so I guess its a nick name. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. ha ha.. yes, it's my nick name.
    there are couple of more ppl who had raised a question about my name. may be i'll write a post on my blog about this nick name. (don't know when ;) )

    ReplyDelete