Villagers better at using RTI tool than city dwellers

If there is a community that deserves praise for using the Right to Information Act (RTI) effectively, the top honours should go to the humble farmers of Gujarat. This fact emerges from looking at the number of calls that Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel's (MAGP) RTI helpline receives.

What's more, while the applicants from rural Gujarat see that their applications do get them due justice, the urban class often tend to leave the battle half way. "In many cases, applicants do not receive the information sought at the first attempt and have to go for second or third appeal. It has been seen that most applicants in city find re-appealing process cumbersome, but those in villages are ready to go to any extent and keep calling us till the time they blow the lid off the corruption at the village-level administration," says MAGP coordinator Pankti Jog.

The helpline answered around 14,000 calls in 2010. And since its launch in 2006 the helpline has received more than 60,000 calls. An analysis of people calling up the helpline revealed that most of them were farmers who had questions related to their land or various welfare schemes. Teachers, public information officers, differently-abled people, social workers and small entrepreneurs also formed a sizeable number of callers.

"Rural people know more about the RTI. We receive more queries from them as compared to the urban population. Panchayat members too use the helpline to get answer to their queries. In fact, the helpline has been so successful that even public information officer (PIO) and appellate organisations contact us to ensure transparency in processing the applications," says Jog.

MAGP conducted an analysis of the calls which showed that a major part of calls involved those seeking information about land entitlement (14%), retirement dues (10%), welfare schemes (10%) and development work (8%).

"There has been an increase in the number of people calling with their queries not directly related to RTI. Also there are thousands who complaint about police not acting on their complaints or not even taking their complaints," says Harinesh Pandya of MAGP.

The study shows that while the RTI helpline has been largely successful in spreading awareness, a lot still needs to be done to increase understanding of the service and to ensure honest and speedy delivery of information from the government side.