So long you were unaware of where and how your local corporator spent the hefty government grants he received every year, or your local body (municipal corporation or municipalities) charged you with various taxes but had nothing to show for it. But, times have changed - you need not stay ignorant anymore.
You can ask for all the information about how taxes and grants are spent under the Right to Information Act (RTI) just as Vadodara's Meenal Gohil and Amreli's RM Rathod had done.
Meenal Gohil, a resident of Virasani pol in Vadodara was annoyed due to the inaction of the corporators pertaining to the civic issues in her area. She wanted to know out of their annual grant of Rs5lakh, how much had the corporators spent and what other developmental initiatives had they undertaken.
She asked for details on how much grant the three corporators had got and how much of it was spent as well as details of any grants spent by the corporators on repairing of roads etc in the area, besides their initiatives to clean gutters and open garbage etc from the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC).
But, the VMC did not give the required information so Gohil appealed to state RTI commission. After examining the appeal the RTI commission observed that the VMC had not furnished the information sought by the applicant as per the RTI act and the information sought by the applicant was in public interest which would help in making the public representatives more accountable.
So, the commission ordered the VMC to furnish the information free of cost to the applicant in 15 days about the discretionary grants, works suggested by the corporators, works executed, estimated cost or expenditure, mode of execution (whether by contractor or departmental) and information regarding drainage system.
Like Gohil, RM Rathod of Amreli was also facing various civic problems in his residential area and the Amereli Municipality was not responding. Therefore Rathod filed an RTI application asking the municipality about the details of the taxes collected by the and the expenses made by the municipality for repairing roads, streetlights, storm water drainage, use of moram (sand) on road for filling potholes. The municipality gave Rathod vague information without any specific records of the money spent.
The Commission strongly criticised the local body and noted in the order that the "information of the type of the appellant has sought is a tool that helps in citizen empowerment to demand better and proper civic amenities in specific areas. Sharing of information may or may not result in improvement of civic amenities but denial of
information on technical grounds does not promote transparency particularly when the information is sought in larger public interest".
The commission ordered the municipality to maintain proper data and furnish it to the applicant. The commission also ordered the director of municipalities to take appropriate actions.
