In the dusty Eastern rea ches of Gujarat lies the Municipality of Kalol, a sub -district of Panch Mahals with a population of just over a 100,000. Within this sits the tiny village of Malav, rarely seen in the public eye. Yet, the village became the object of media attention when its Panchayat became a model example of co mpliance with the Right to Information Act.
In the Malav Panchayat, information about their administration, finances and activities are displayed innovatively as wall paintings in the local language, to be viewed by anyone. The colourful writing livens up the otherwise plain, whitewashed building, now plastered in posters, notices and wall paintings. Up to even a few months ago, anyone who wanted information about the Panchayat would be obliged to file a lengthy RTI application, whose results would only be revealed a full month later. Instead, active me mbers of society who believed they had the right to know what their local administration was doing are able to merely come into the Panchayat building and find the information they require displayed.
Sampaben Mukeshbhai discovered that she was entitled to benefits under the Chiranjeevi Scheme, which was meant to provide benefits to poor women who could not afford costly deliveries in nursing homes. Sh e had thought that only people below the poverty line could avail those benefits and missed out on them for years.
In 2008, Nagarik Adhikar Kendra (NAK ), a lo cal NGO, worked with CHRI to assess compliance by selected public authorities with the RTI Act. NAK previously received training as paralegals from CHR I, and implemented this while working towards deepening transparency and accountability at the district level in Gujarat. Over time, they developed templates and guid ance mate rial to proactively disclose information at the Panchayat level.
Proactive Disclosure: A Case Study
With so much information now readily available, many citizens began participating in Panchayat meetings, having now understood the purpose and benefits of these. Buriben was one of these. She discovered the Indira Awaas
Yojana scheme, which helps provide housing for the rural poor, and was able to file for a BPL card and avail the facility.
With the awareness ca mpaign around this project, the initiative spread to 15 other Panchayats in the surrounding district of Dahod, with the district administration ordering replication in 200 others. Through sensitisation and training workshops, officials in the area have been made aware of the advantages of proactive disclosure and the importance o f RTI, to create model democrati c institutions. To make this initiative accessible to a wider Indian and international audience, the scheme has been captured in a documentary in Hindi and Gujarati, and is being contextualised for a wider audience and translation into English.
This proactive disclosure model may have a wider influence to develop guidelines for Central and state governance. These grassroots initiatives have found their way to policy -level recommendations, which will be circulated to all state governments seeking compliance with the RTI Act. Civil society organisations too have taken an interest in the project, and have visited and studied the Malav Panchayat in order to replicate and then broaden the reach of the initiative.
Both Sampaben and Buriben were able to use the proactively disclosed information and actu ally make a differenc e to their lives. By discovering the two schemes, Sampaben could provide better for her fa mily and receive enhanced medical c are, while Buriben could finally afford to build a house and improve her stand ard of living.
The importance of proactive disclosure is clea r here: it prevents the filing of unnecessary RTI applications; it prevents the use of bribes as a standard practice, reducing corruption ; reduces the time for information to reach the appropriate audience; fosters belief and inspires trust in the local and eventually, national government; and most importantly, can actually improve the quality of life of citizens who arenâ€&#x;t awa re of what is owed to them by the government.