On 17 October 2005, five days after the Right to Information Act came into force, a public hearing in Lakshmangarh village (Surguja District, Chhattisgarh) showed how the Act can empower ordinary people and enable them to fight corruption.
The public hearing focused on the recent construction of a "talab" (pond) under the National Food For Work Programme. A sum of Rs 3.5 lakhs was sanctioned to the Irrigation Department for this project, of which Rs 3.1 lakhs have been spent. The entire amount was spent on labour, over three "muster rolls" covering one week each. (1 lakh = 100,000)
Getting hold of the muster rolls was no easy task. This happened before the Right to Information Act came into force. The initial attempt was made by a team of students from Delhi University, who were conducting a field survey of the National Food For Work Programme in Surguja last June on behalf of Dr N C Saxena, Commissioner of the Supreme Court. In spite of the Commissioner's backing, the students were made to run from pillar to post for several weeks in search of the muster rolls. It is only after the Rozgar Adhikar Yatra occupied the local office of the Irrigation Department on 4 June that the concerned officials finally agreed to part with two of the three muster rolls.
The public hearing convened on 17 October immediately showed that the muster rolls had been fudged. There were 320 names on the rolls, from three adjacent villages: Lakshmangarh, Phoolgi and Sanibarra. Each labourer's village of residence is written in the muster rolls against his or her name, making it possible to verify the names from the "voters' lists". It emerged that only 63 of the 320 names were genuine – the other names were fake. Residents of all three villages attended the public hearing, and they confirmed that the 257 untraceable names were fictitious.
More: http://www.indiatogether.org/direct/2005/cdr-000088.html
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