Auditing use of funds allocated for section 26 of RTI Act in Gujarat

[jps50]

Shri Amit Jethwa of Khambha village with my assistance, had sought replies to 8 queries plus inspection from 24 District Collectors and 5 Municipal Corporations of Gujarat through RTI on 10-02-2010; in connection with use of funds allocated by govt for implementing section 26 of RTI Act 2005. He has filed complaints against all Collectors and 4 municipal commissioners with Gujarat Information Commission for under utilization of fund and not properly replying to queries. His RTI applications dated 10-02-2010 made the district and municipal administration run for using fund at least before 31-03-2010. Systems do not work on its own in our country, one has to make it work. The Law is only as strong as an individual is. We had raised following queries:


Please provide me [financial] year-wise following information in relation to funds utilization made by your office in connection with obligations under section 26 of RTI Act 2005 from 21-06-2005 to date of this application.

1. Total fund received from Govts. directly or through Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration Gandhinagar, Gujarat [spipa] or any other organization/dept etc.

2. Total fund actually utilized for compliance of section 26 of RTI Act.

3. Amount of unutilized fund and reasons for such non/under utilization of fund.

4. Dates, particulars of utilization and amount of fund actually used.

5. Provide one copy of each of free printed material/book lets etc distributed to general public on RTI.

6. Name and designation of officer of your office who was incharge of such utilization of fund for section 26 of RTI Act 2005.

7. In case if advertisements are released, please provide one copy of such advertisements with date and name of news paper or magazine etc.

8. Please provide photocopy of one photograph of each of work shop or camp or gathering arranged for general public awareness of RTI, with date and place on the reverse side of photocopy of photographs.

9. I be permitted actual inspection of records relating to receipt and utilization of fund for section 26 of RTI Act 2005, with the assistance of my one friend

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[Atul Patankar]

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As reported by Vijaysinh Parmar at timesofindia.indiatimes.com on June 14, 2010

KHAMBHA (Amreli): Are district administrations across the state indifferent about creating awareness on Right to Information Act 2005? A look at the utilisation of funds allocated by the state government for this purpose certainly indicates so.

This major revelation came from series of RTI applications made by activists from Khambha taluka of Amreli district to know the status of funds which were meant to be used to create public awareness of the RTI Act under section 26.

It also issued a guideline about the utilisation of funds to create awareness about the Act. The communiqué asked the collectorates to form a committee headed by the respective collector. The deadline for utilisation of funds was March 31, 2010.

"Our RTIs revealed that in most of the districts the fund was either under utilised or not utilised at all. There are districts that have not used a single rupee till end of March,'' said Yusuf Juneja, a member of Mahiti Adhikar Nagrik Mandal in Khambha.

"We started filling RTI queries on February 10 this year at all district collectorates. Interestingly, in many districts, officials started convening meetings to discuss the allocated funds with their respective officials after our queries were filed," Juneja said. Among the worst cases were Valsad, Gandhinagar, Kutch, Kheda, Anand, Navsari and Surendrangar.

In Surendranagar district, on March 16, collectors started allocating funds to mamlatdars and other district officials. "The mamlatdars were given a deadline to utilise the funds, giving them just 15 days to spread awareness. In many cases, we did not get information from the first applications. So, RTI applications are pending with at appeal level and Gujarat Information Commission,'' he added.

"We have seen that funds are either being under utilised or misused. In fact, government agencies should encourage citizens for more participation in order to create greater transparency, which will serve the objective of the Act,'' said JP Shah, RTI crusader in Junagadh.