The 'Drive Against Bribe' Campaign in Jaipur received an overwhelming response on the third day of the campaign, with around 100 visitors swarming the kiosk outside the Collectorate to know how the Right to Information Act 2005 could help solve their government-related problems, and 18 concrete applications being filed under the RTI Act 2005. With this, 26 applications have now been filed under the Act in the city since Day One of the campaign.
The applications filed today concerned various departments of the state government, ranging from the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA), Health, Education, Police, Collectorate, Jaipur Nagar Nigam, Environment, Groundwater, Home, Electricity and Revenue. Besides, this, one person filed an appeal under the RTI Act in the Jaipur Nagar Nigam.
As many as five applications today related to land. One related to the land of a dalit, Vijaylakshmi, who demanded to know why the JDA had not given her the patta (title), why her boundary wall had been demolished in February and she was been asked to move out of her plot when all her ownership papers were clearly in order and her plot had been approved by the JDA. She had been asked to pay a bribe of Rs.15000 by an official in JDA and could not muster up this amount. One Anup Jaipuria who had visited the kiosk on Saturday went in to put his application today in the Collectorate (tehsildar's office) concerning his land records. He returned to the kiosk in the afternoon disillusioned - he had had no luck in filing his application and had been asked to go from one office to the other for over two hours. He was then accompanied by one of our volunteers (a journalist with a leading Hindi daily) who again went through the process of going to the tehsildar's office, the SDO's office, the ADM-I (who is the designated PIO for the Collectorate) with Anup. None of them were 'in their seat' and finally, his application by accepted by the ADM-III. In all, it had taken Anup five full hours to file the RTI application.
Taking his case as an extremely revealing example of how the RTI Act is still out of reach for the common man, a group of mediapersons and volunteers from the Abhiyan went along with Anup to meet the Collector. The delegation demanded that the procedure for applying under the RTI Act be made clear to the public through display of boards at the Collectorate, stating all vital information relating to the Act, information on PIOs, what one should do if the PIO is not available, prescribed fees and so on. The Collector assured that this would be done shortly. He also committed to publishing a booklet with all details of the offices and officers within the Collectorate and suo-moto disclosures under Section (4) of the Act. Responding to a question by a correspondent from a Hindi channel, he said that 'the district administration is willing to co-operate fully with the Abhiyan. We can think of organising some workshops with social activists and organisations who are part of the campaign.' He has also designated the PIO (ADM - Ist), B.N.Chowdhry as the officer who will deal with any problems or queries cropping up during the campaign.