Villagers from Maharashtra’s Palghar use RTI to get information on rural works
MUMBAI: The Right to Information Act is becoming an asset for villagers — those from tribal hamlets in Jawhar block of Maharashtra’s Palghar district — to seek accountability of work done by village panchayats.It was last year only when the tribals from several hamlets in Jawhar and Mokhada blocks managed to get village panchayat status for their hamlets under the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) (PESA) Act.“The villages receive grants ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 35 lakh depending upon their population size.
Villagers wrote letters to sarpanch and gram sevaks to divulge information on these funds in December. The BDO ordered the information be made public in January. But, they are not just ready to do so. Hence, the people have started seeking information under RTI. We have termed this RTI Satyagraha,” says Vinayak Thalkar, the president of Vayam, the NGO steering the tribal’s movement for self-rule in the area.
“We started conducting Gram Sabha (village meeting) at our Pada (Hamlet) in September last year.
After an official announcement, government officials conducted verification of Gram Sabha on December 14. But, neither the Sarpanch nor the Gram Sevak has come in the past four months. We wanted information on the funds spent on our village and we wrote to them. But, they didn’t divulge information. Hence, we filed RTI applications,” says Deepak Bhusara from Sarsul village.
About 150 applications from 20 odd hamlets were submitted to their respective village panchayats so far. But, many of them, says Deepak, were rejected bluntly. Block Development Officer Rahul Mhatre says he already gave orders to make the information available in public domain. “We shall wait for a month as per the RTI directives. I feel the information should be made available by then within a month.”