District level Lobby and Advocacy Workshop on Right to Information-2005
Organised jointly by JIED (Jyoti Institute for Education and Development and
ODC (Organisation for Development Coordination)
Sponsored by CENDERET , XIM, Bhbaneswar
Dates: 3 and 4 March 2006, Venue: Zilla Parishad Conference Hall, Makangiri
DAY 1: 3 MARCH 2006
Inaugural Session
At first a note of welome to the participants, officials and resource person was given by Sri Manoj Kumar Dora, JIED (Jyoti Institute for Educational Development). Then the Workshop was formally inaugurated by Sri Ashok Kumar Panda, PD DRDA, Malkangiri by way of lighting the ceremonial lamp. Smt. B.L.Patra, Programme Officer ICDS, who is also an APIO in the District Office of Malkangiri was present too on the dais among others. Sri Anjan Kumar Panda, District Coordinator PRI Project of CENDERET at Malkangiri gave an introduction to the theme of the Workshop.
Talk by PD DRDA, Malkangiri
The inaugurator Sri Ashok Kumar Panda thanked the organizers for holding such a Workshop for at Malkangiri, which is a very backward and poverty-stricken area of the State. In fact the year 2005 have witnessed two landmark legislations passed by the Parliament of India, namely Right to Information Act and National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which aimed at empowering the people with two very important rights i.e. right to know and right to work. The RTI Act having received the assent of the President on 15th of June’05 came into full force w.e.f. 12th of October last, while the NREGA has been launched throughout India including Orissa w.e.f. 2nd of February 2006.
The RTI has already been discussed in the meeting of Malkangiri Zilla Parishad and all the officials of the district have been sensitized on the subject. As regards the procedure to obtain information, any person can apply for it in the prescribed format. The information can be delivered through ordinary or registered post, depending upon the option given by the applicant citizen. All the information that a public authority has in its possession can be disclosed to the members of the public except those relating to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country and the like. However, the RTI law has categorically stipulated that the information which can’t be denied to Assembly or Parliament can’t be denied to a citizen too. Again, certain categories of information shall be published suo moto by the public authorities, and no body has to pay anything for the information of that sort. But the other kinds of information which a citizen shall have to apply for, can be made available only against payment of required fees. Even notings on a file can be disclosed to a citizen under this law. There is a strong penalty clause in the law against a defaulter officer. He or she can be fined at the rate of Rs.250/- per each day’s delay on his/her part in providing the required information, and an officer can be charged with a fine extending upto Rs.25,000/-. Thus RTI is a very much progressive law that can benefit the common people in many, many ways. But the sad reality is that overwhelming bulk of people in a district like Malkangiri being illiterate and backward, are not aware till date about the provisions of this law or about how to make use of them. So the NGOs and civil society groups working among the people at grass root level have a natural obligation to make them aware in such a way that they are enabled to access the official information they require by using this law.
Then the PD DRDA spoke at some length on newly launched National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005, which is being currently implemented in the whole of country including Orissa with effect from 2nd February 2006. In Orissa 19 districts including Malkangiri are covered by the Scheme made under the NREGA. As per the Act, an unskilled person in a rural area is entitled to get the work within 15 days of his/her application made for the purpose, failing which he/she shall be provided with an unemployment allowance. The NREGA is no doubt a powerful law made and being implemented in the interest of the rural poor. But just as we found in case of RTI that due to ignorance and illiteracy, the people are yet to make use of it, so also is more or less the case with NREGA. Out of a target of 1,20,000 persons in Malkangiri district to be registered for the purpose of issuance of job cards to them, only 60,000 nos. have so far been registered. Under the circumstances the NGOs and civil society groups working among the rural poor should come forward to carry the message of NREGA to them in all possible ways, and thereby ensure achieving of larger registration figures at the earliest.
Sri Anjan Kumar Panda, Dist. Coordinator of CENDERET for PRI Project:
Sri Panda said that it was really a sad fact that only 60,000 out of the targeted 1 lakh 20 thousand households in Malkangiri could be registered in the last month. Given such low volume of registration, we can’t expect Malkangiri district to receive good allocations from the Central fund under NREGA.
Then speaking about the RTI, the topic of the day, Sri Panda observed that the RTI Act as passed by the Parliament is a citizen-friendly legislation, which has special enabling provisions for persons below poverty line, disabled and illiterate. But the Orissa Rules made under the Act seem to be completely different from the mother law and unfavorable to the marginalized sections of people. For instance, as per the Orissa Rules, a page of xerox costs Rs.5/- and that of computer print-out Rs.10/-, whereas either of it is only Rs.2/- under the Central Rules. Again, the application fee is only Rs.10/- as per the Central Rules, while it is Rs.20/- in Orissa. The application form and other procedural norms for obtaining information or for making an appeal under the Act have been made too difficult and complex for a common person to use. Thus there is an imperative need for revising the Orissa RTI Rules to suit the common people. However, there is still a way out permissible under the Section 4 of the RTI Act for any person to get information instantly from any public office without having to make an application or deposit any fee whatsoever, and this scope has not been affected in any manner by the Orissa RTI Rules. The participants of this Workshop are supposed to test this provision in course of the practical lesson in approaching various public offices the next day. So the participants should exert themselves to meticulously grasp the significance of this unique provision of the RTI Act. It is expected that following the Workshop, the activists who would be sensitised and trained here should go round in their respective areas to make the common people aware and enabled to make use of this provision to achieve their multifarious information requirements.
Interaction with PD DRDA
Then the participants asked the PD DRDA about their doubts and questions on NREGA and its manner of implementation at grass root level. The PD answered them one by one.
Sri Chitta Behera, Advisor to Orissa Right to Information Campaign:
Intervening in the discussion, Sri Behera made some observations on what the PD DRDA understood and described about the RTI Act and Orissa Rules.
First of all, the officers of Government of Orissa and also Information Commissioners speak about only one aspect of the Act i.e how to get information by way of filling up the Application Form, paying the application fee and other fees under Sections 6 and 7. But there is another, more important aspect of the Act i.e the Section 4 under which a person can access information as required, without having to make any application or paying any fee. As a matter of fact, the Section 4(2) itself says that if the public authorities can disclose maximum amount of information held with them, suo moto to the people at large, then there would remain little scope for the citizens to apply for information under the Act. In fact the Section 4(1b) lists out 17 nos. of categories of information for suo moto disclosure by the public authorities, and on a close scrutiny it would be revealed that all sorts of information which the common people require in their day-to-day life are covered under the said 17 categories. The Section 4(4) says that these information shall be made available to the public free of cost or at a fee to be prescribed by the appropriate Government. Since the Orissa RTI Rules [ vide Rule 2(1c)] speaks of only 3 kinds of fees [ fees under 6(1), 7(1) and 7(5)], and leaves out the fee under Section 4(4) unmentioned, the information under Section 4(1b) shall therefore have to be made available free of cost. Similarly, the Explanation to Section 4 says that public authorities shall have to allow the members of public even to instantly inspect their offices, and the latter shall not have to make any application or pay any fee for the purpose. Since the officers or the Information Commissioners of the State don’t highlight this easy and free-of-cost provision for getting the official information, and only speak of the difficult and costly method, it is the NGOs and civil society groups who have to publicise and disseminate this highly people-friendly provision so as to enable the common people to avail it for their benefit.
Despite the lapse of more than 4 months of the full-scale enforcement of the RTI Act, why haven’t many people come forward to apply for information under the Act in Orissa ? The reason lies in the nature of Orissa RTI Rules itself? In fact not only the exorbitant fee regime, but also the too-complex Application Form (Form A) and too-spacious power of the PIO to reject an application in Form C coupled with some unheard-of draconian provisions to harass and persecute people in all possible ways on the pretext of implementing the RTI law, acts as an insuperable barrier before the people to make any application for information under this law. As against the clear provision of the Act under Section 7(9) that an information shall be provided in the very manner in which a citizen has asked for it, the Orissa Rules have made compulsory an 11-Column Application Form to be filled up, failing which the application shall stand rejected as per Column (ii) of Form C, and the application fee of Rs.20/- automatically forfeited. Then as against the Act’s provision under Section 6(2) that an applicant shall not be required to disclose any personal details, the Form A asks for such details as name of spouse, permanent address, voter identity card or passport etc. of an applicant. Again as against the Act’s provision under Section 7(3a) that an applicant shall be informed about the details of the fees to be paid in lieu of the information sought, the Form B under Orissa Rules provides for mentioning only the block amount that an applicant has to pay. While the Act has no provision for any appeal fees (vide Section 27 or 28), the Orissa Rules prescribe a fee of Rs.40/- for the first appeal and Rs.50/- for the second appeal. The Orissa Rules has blatantly violated both the letter and spirit of the mother Act by prescribing draconian provisions under Rules 10, 12 and 13. The Rule 10 says that if a citizen asks for a sample of any structure, and if the structure allegedly collapses in the process of the sample collection by the concerned PIO, then the applicant citizen has to pay for the cost of damage so caused to the whole structure. Under the circumstances, can any citizen apply for getting a sample under the Act at all? Similarly, the Orissa Rule-12 asks for advance deposit of money by an appellant before the Information Commission against the expenditure to be incurred for production of evidence/witness in connection with hearing of an appeal, whereas the Section 19(5) and Section 20(1) of the Act clearly put the burden of proof on the PIO who denied the request for information. Above all, the Orissa Rules has been structured in such a way as to subject any person whosoever dares to apply for information or prefer an appeal before the Commission to an endless chain of suffering and persecution for the whole of his life. The Rule 13 says that if any person fails to pay the cost of damage or any sum payable under the Act within 30 days of the notice for the same, then the said amount shall be realized from him just in the manner in which ‘the arrears of land revenue’ is realized, which means that his land/homestead may be confiscated or alternatively he may have to court civil imprisonment for a period of 6 weeks if the arrear involved is less than Rs.250/- and for a period of 6 months if the arrear involved is more, as provided under the Public Demands Recovery Act 1962.
The Orissa Rules has also betrayed the BPL families by exempting only application fee [vide Rule 4(1)] while compelling them to pay the other two kinds of fees [the cost of providing information as under Section 7(1) and fee for the electronic medium as under Section 7(5)]. But the Central Act [Section 7(5)] and Central Rules clearly provide for the exemption of all the above mentioned 3 fees for the BPL families.
The Orissa Rules is filled with worst sort of absurdities too. For instance, as per the Rule 4 a person may apply for information even through email. But when asked to pay the required sum in Form B against the cost of the information sought, the applicant has to visit physically the concerned office in person or through a messenger to deposit the required fee by cash. Since the Orissa Rules has no provision for other modes of payment like Bank Cheque/Draft and Postal Order. Thus under the Orissa Rules no body staying afar within or outside the State can apply for information to any office under the control of the State Government. Again, though the applicant can submit his/her application for information through email (Rule 4), there is no corresponding provision for supplying the said information through email.
The main reason as to why the Orissa Rules has become so much skewed against the poor, ground reality and the mother law lies in the undeniable fact that it was prepared by a coterie of 5 top bureaucrats (vide para 8 of the Proceedings of the Core Implementation Committee held on 22.8.05) in a clandestine manner, and suddenly notified in the first week of October’05 bypassing the long standing legal requirement under Section 24 of the Orissa General Clauses Act 1937 to publicise the draft-Rules for inviting objections from the public if any before giving a final shape to it.
Thus the Orissa Rules which is anti-poor, ultra vires the mother law and above all an unworkable document stands in dire need of its withdrawal lock, stock and barrel and its replacement by an appropriate set of Rules to be formulated in keeping with the interests and aspirations of the poor and downtrodden people of Orissa. And until the appropriate RTI Rules be in place for the State of Orissa, the people should make use of Section 4 of the Act to access information of all kinds and from all kinds of public authorities except of course the exempted areas provided under Sections 8 and 24, and that too without the hassle of filling up an application form, of paying any fee or of waiting for days on end.
Lunch Break
Post-Lunch Session: Training on Operational Part of Section 4
The post-lunch session was conducted by Sri Chitta Behera, and assisted by Sri Anjan Kumar Panda, who had been already conversant with the training module in course of the RTI Workshop at Parlakhemundi held on 23/24 Feb. 2006 under the joint aegis of CURE and SORC, CENDRERET. The sole object of the session was to arm the trainees with the quintessential art of how to make use of Section 4 to access information instantly and without paying any fee. All the provisions under Section 4 were read out one after another and each explained to the participants with popular examples. Specifically speaking, the 17 categories of information as mentioned under Section 4(1b) were explained to them, and they were emphatically told that any conceivable piece of information that a person might want can be shown to belong to this or that category under the said Section. And the Section 4(2) itself clearly mandates that each public authority should disclose so much information under Section 4(1b) suo moto that the public shall hardly feel the need to apply, pay and wait for the information as per the other provisions of this law. The Section 4(4) is a very important provision, in the sense that it firstly provides for the dissemination of all sorts of information by a public authority, to be made through people’s language and media; secondly it says that all such information shall be made available to the people either free of cost or at only the actual cost of print, which may be prescribed by the Government cost. Since the Government of Orissa have not prescribed any fee against the information under Section 4(4), so the people are entitled to receive the information in the alternative manner i.e. free of cost. Then the Explanation to Section 4 was read out, and it was explained to them that it provides inter alia for the right of the members of public to inspect a public office and that too without having to make any application or pay any fee. The inspection fee as mentioned under the Schedule appended to Orissa Rules won’t apply in case of the inspection as provided under Explanation to Section 4, since the said Schedule is applicable only in the context of the application for inspection arising from Section 6 of the Act. Thus the Section 4 of the RTI Act read together with the Orissa RTI Rules 2005 establishes unequivocally a citizen’s right to inspection and information from a public office instantly and free-of-cost and without any application.
The trainees were further told about certain other beneficial provisions under the RTI Act, which the people in a backward region can take advantage of. The Section 6(1b) provides for any person unable to write, to make an oral request for information and it is the duty of the PIO to render the oral request into a written application, if necessary. The Section 7(4) provides that all sorts of assistance shall be provided to a person with disability even to inspect the records that he or she wants to.
SECOND DAY: 4th MARCH 2006
11AM to 12 noon: First, an exposition followed by rehearsal of Section 4(1), (1b), (4) and Explanation to Section 4 of the Act and of Orissa Rules 2(1c), 2(2), 4(1), Form A, Schedule of Fees was given for refreshing of the lessons learnt by the participants the previous day.
12 noon to 2 PM: Visit to select State Government offices:
Group-1 Jyoti Patnaik and 6 others (Padmalaya Patnaik, Era Padiami, Kanaya Duary, Muni Madkami, Ere Madakami, Guro Bhumia):
They approached the Malkangiri Block office for getting information on allotment of funds under various schemes to Sindrimal GP during the year 2005-06. But the BDO was not present at the moment. The ABDO who was present then directed the group to contact the PIO for the purpose, But the PIO was also not present at the time. Then some clerks asked the group to submit written application, but the group mentioned about the Section 4 of the RTI Act, under which no application was necessary for getting the required information. The Executive Officer of Sindrimal GP Sri Dillip Kumar Das, who is PIO of the concerned GP was incidentally present there and furnished the details of the information sought in his handwritten notes and under his signature, without asking for any application or fee. However neither the group had asked for certifying the said information under the office seal, nor the EO complied with this requirement from his side.
Then the group visited the District Agriculture Office for the information on subsidy schemes including supply of seeds provided to Sikhapali GP during the year 2005-06.
Sri Basant Kumar Dey, the Agronomist who is also the PIO of the said office furnished a hand-written note containing the information sought, without however certifying it in due manner. The group had also not asked for such certification either.
Group- 2 Sri Ganesh Das and 5 others ( Renuka Shial, Krushna Shial, Tulsiram Bhumia, Mukund Nayak, Budra Bhumia):
They visited first of all the office of CDMO, Malkangiri for information on infant birth and death details of the district for the period from January 05 to January 06. The CDMO or the PIO was not present then, Then they approached the Head Clerk for the purpose, but he refused to give the information on the ground that he didn’t know anything about the RTI. The BEE ( Block Extension Educator) who was present then called the group and asked the group to note down the said information from the concerned records. The group accordingly wrote down the information they wanted. However the information sheet was not duly attested on the ground as shown by the BEE that he was not competent to certify the same.
Next they visited the office of DPEP( District Primary Education Programme) conducting SSA ( Sarva Sikshya Abhijan), for information on the number of Govt run schools and EGS ( Education Guarantee Scheme) Centres currently operating in the district of Malkangiri. Except a Clerk no body was present then. He provided the data on a handwritten note but refused to sign it pleading incompetent for the purpose.
Group-3 Jitendra Das and 4 others( Bidyadhar Maharana, Narayan Khemundu, Jelly Kumar, Sartaz Banu, :
They first visited the office of DRDA (District Rural Development Agency) Malkangiri for the updated information on the number of job seekers registered under NREGA in Kartanpalli GP under Mathili Block. They met Sri Prafulla Kumar Behera, the APD (Additional Project Director) Scheme for the purpose. Firstly he refused to provide the information pertaining to any particular GP, but he agreed to provide the Block level data. However when the group insisted on getting the said information, the APD gave the same after printing it out from the concerned website. But the information sheet was not duly signed or certified by him, and neither the group had demanded the same.
Then they visited the office of SP (Superintendent of Police) Malkangiri seeking information on cases of atrocity on women in the district during two months January and February 2006. The SP was not present then, but a lady officer invited the group and furnished the required information on a handwritten note, without however certifying it. The group had also not asked for the certification either.
Comments by Sri Chitta Behera:
After the groups presented their respective experiences, Sri Behera told the participants to compare their field experience of the day with the interpretation of the Act and Rules given by the PD DRDA the previous day. While the PD had advised the participants to submit an application form duly filled in along with an application fee of Rs.20/- for getting any information, the fresh experience of the participants told an altogether different story, that is, for getting any information under Section 4 of the Act there was no need for all such formalities and expenses. The only criterion that a citizen should fulfill in order to get instantly the information free and without any application is that he or she should be thoroughly conversant with the difference between Section 6 that deals with information on application and Section 4 that deals with suo moto disclosure of information by public authorities. Whatever experience was gained by the participants should be used further to help the untutored people in villages to access information under Section 4 from public authorities of all sorts.
The next observation Sri Behera made centred round the need for insisting on proper authentication or certification of the received information, to be issued by the concerned officer of a public authority, otherwise the uncertified information can’t be made use of in courts and offices.
The participants should also boldly tell the officers whom they visit for seeking information that they would directly complain before the Information Commission under Section 18 of the Act, if denied information. The suggestion of a complaint itself would serve as a pressure on the concerned officer to serve the information properly and swiftly to the person asking for it.
Action Plan:
Based upon the opinions of the participants, an action plan was made for them to work out at different levels where they work. There should be a few more practical exercises in near future for the Block level activists in approaching the public authorities for getting free and instant information. Thereafter the Block level activists so trained and oriented would further sensitise the Panchayat functionaries and social activists at GP level and if need be, escort the groups of such people to access the information they want by using the Sections 4 and 18.
To disseminate the message of RTI widely both among the common people and officials at grass root level, publicity materials like posters and pamphlets in local language should be prepared and circulated at GP and Block levels.