A news report in 1996 in the Times of India (ToI) of a public agitation by social activist Aruna Roy through her Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatana (MKSS), demanding the law of Right to Information, aroused the curiosity of a village school teacher in Satara and continues to dominate his life even now, 19 years after the implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
Shivaji Raut, the school teacher in question, has succeeded in journeying through the maze of triumphs and tribulations in his journey of invoking the RTI Act, to demand accountability and transparency from the public authorities of Satara district and also to contain corruption.
Mr Raut says, prior to the RTI Act, he remembers the utter humiliation he would face from the government officers whenever he wanted information on issues that directly concerned the citizens. Doubling as a part-time journalist (besides serving as a school teacher) in Marathi news dailies like Loksatta and Dainik Prabhat, his struggle to get information eased after the state RTI Act was implemented in 2003 in Maharashtra.
Since 2003, Mr Raut began his chase for truth in local issues like tree felling and pensions given to bogus freedom fighters. One of his significant investigations through RTI was the large-scale felling of the Mappia foetida, known locally as narkya trees found in the Western Ghats. It is much in demand as a medicinal plant as it contains anti-cancer properties.
As reported in the Down to Earth magazine, “The alkaloid camptothecin (CPT), extracted from the wood chips of the trees, is an essential component of chemotherapy and narkya is said to be the most promising source for large-scale production of CPT.”
Mr Raut invoked the RTI to get substantial information on the indiscriminate felling of these trees from the Western Ghats and police cases filed against the gangs by the forest department. He then submitted his findings to the chief conservator of forests in Nagpur, of the over 500 gangs that were operating and looting the treasure to export it to Korea. Some heads rolled in the forest department thanks to Mr Raut’s submission, and action was taken against the criminals. The issue still persists but the lid was opened by this humble RTI user.
Mr Raut also sought information from the Satara district collectorate of copies of muster rolls for a specific period, on labourers who worked under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) which provides a legal guarantee of 100 days of employment per year. He sought information from 43 villages of Mann and Khatau villages of Satara. The revelations were shocking as many of those listed in it were either fake or had already died. Mr Raut says that this exposure entailed financial irregularities of Rs17 crore and led to the suspension of some officers. It also led to the minimisation of such fraud as officers realised that they could be exposed under the RTI Act.
Mr Raut says that RTI gets a bad name because of people who seek information just for the sake of being informed and do not take the issue to its logical end. Mr Raut also took on the sand mafia that is rampant in Satara and exposed it. According to him, contractors were taking away sand even from prohibited areas and were not giving sales tax to the government. Unearthing the names of the contractors through RTI and their irregularities resulted in the district authorities clamping down on them. Now, procuring sand from river banks has been banned and crushing sand from stone is the mode of construction.
The seriousness of sand mining since the year 2000 when Mr Raut filed his series of RTI applications was reported in Le Monde online newspaper of September 2022: “Since the early 2000s, sand demand in India is estimated to have more than tripled. Within a few decades, manual and artisanal extraction, without much ecological impact, has been replaced by massive and mechanized exploitation, causing major damage. Much of it is done illegally. If its scale is impossible to precisely quantify, it generates a profitable business that enriches entrepreneurs, politicians, union and local leaders and corrupt police officers – so-called "sand mafias" that are at the heart of violence and murders.”
Mr Raut’s latest campaign through RTI is the financial irregularities of the Satara collectorate, through the copy of the audit report of 2018-2019 which he procured.
He states that “An audit report for the financial year 2018-2019, submitted by the Accountant General, has revealed significant financial irregularities in the administration of the seven divisions under the Satara collectorate. The audit highlights serious violations of rules and mismanagement of government funds during the tenure of the then collector, Shweta Singal. As a result, a special vigilance team has been assigned to the department for six months to investigate further.”
The report, issued by the accountant general, also lists irregularities in property renewals, lease fees and the renewal of 119 plots out of a total of 192 government leases across several talukas in Satara district. A major concern raised is the lack of action on 73 plots which have been pending resolution for 26 years.
According to correspondence from the external audit division, Pune, Mr Raut says, “Despite multiple letters, including one dated 7 October 2020, from the collector's office, no concrete actions have been taken regarding the allegations of administrative opacity. This audit report, dated 6 August 2020, had demanded urgent submission of related documents within a month, but the situation remains unresolved.”
The auditors, he says, have called for a review by the divisional revenue commissioners to ensure development funds are utilised efficiently. Despite claims from the collector’s office that delays in fund arrivals were responsible for the underspending, the audit team has rejected these explanations and emphasised adherence to financial regulations.
Indeed, mild-mannered Mr Raut takes the authorities head-on without fear for his life and with abundant energy. He says, “The neta-babu nexus, wherein politicians stand by corrupt bureaucrats, is the main reason why the public information officers and public authorities have no fear of not providing information under the RTI Act.”
However, he ends on a positive note. Mr Raut believes that if more and more citizens use the RTI Act and use the information to expose or nail the authorities, no amount of dilution by the governments can tame the power of the RTI Act. Kudos to this grassroots RTI worker!
(Vinita Deshmukh is consulting editor of Moneylife. She is also the convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting, which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain Award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book "To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte" with Vinita Kamte and is the author of "The Mighty Fall".)
