The RTI really works !!!

Greetings to all members of PABAM.

I am a member of the Thati Baal Panchayat and my village comes under the Bilangana Development Area, District Tehri. Our 25 members Baal Panchayat works in the areas of Health, Education and cleanliness of the village and we are helped in out endeavor by the NGO, Mount Valley Development Association (MVDA), who from time to time gives us training on various issues. In Jan 2009, our Baal Panchayat received training from the Mountain Children’s Forum and MVDA on the “Right to Information Act” and how to file an application. 

We attended a 2 day intensive workshop which culminated, after great discussions, in the filing of a number of RTI applications. The applications have to be filed by an individual and not a group so I decided to file an application asking the Block Education Dept to give me information regarding the attendance requirements of a primary school teacher. Our village has a primary school and there are 46 children who attend this school. In the last 3 years the teacher has been present for only 10 days in a month.

On receipt of the application, the Block Education Officer along with an 11 member team visited our village. The teacher was absent on that day as well and had to be called from his residence. During the course of the questioning it was learnt that the not only had the teacher not been attending school but he had not been distributing the scholarship to the children.  The Block Education Officer was extremely annoyed with the teacher and issued a warning – That the teacher was to distribute the pending scholarship money to the children in the month of March and must attend school every day. Information regarding attendance of the teacher and amount of scholarship to be distributed was handed over in writing to us.

Since then the teacher has been attending school every day, classes are being held regularly and finally we are all now learning something new every day.

On behalf of the members of the Thati Baal Panchayat I would like to take this opportunity to thank the MCF for not only making us aware of the RTI but also empowering us to use the RTI to our advantage.

Mahavir
Village Thati
Bilangana Dev. Area
Dist. Tehri Garwal
Uttrakhand

Back