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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | RTI helpline wins award by Ankur Jain

RTI helpline wins award by Ankur Jain

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published Published on Jan 17, 2011   modified Modified on Jan 17, 2011

You might not get a kilo of onions for Rs 54, but this Right To Information (RTI) helpline helps thousands every month to fight for their rights — for only that amount. Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Parishad (MAGP)'s helpline, which was launched in May 2006 and has received more than 60,000 calls till now, is managed by a team of volunteers at a monthly expense of just Rs 54.

The helpline has recently won a special award for its contribution to RTI activism from People's Union for Civil Liberties ( PUCL). The helpline has been chosen for this honour by an illustrious jury comprising Naryana Murthy, J M Lyngdoh, and Shekhar Singh.

The helpline will be officially conferred the award at a ceremony in Delhi on January 20 by Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hedge and activist Anna Hazare. The helpline is run by RTI activists Harinesh Pandya, Pankti Jog, Twinkle Mangaonkar, Mital Patel, Sadhna Panday, and Punit Juneja. They take out time from their jobs to run the helpline.

"Many helplines started in India after the RTI Act was announced in 2005 but the MAGP helpline remains the most professionally managed one," said RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal. "The award jury, in fact, couldn 't find any helpline parallel to it. Interestingly, a good number of callers who contact t h e helpline are public information officers. Also, the group conducts RTI clinics every week."

The helpline gets calls from 12 states on issues ranging from domestic violence to dry water taps to irregularities in various housing schemes. "We have to update ourselves constantly as we can't afford to sound ignorant on any law, judgment, or government scheme," says Harinesh, who conceptualised the helpline in 2006. The only ex pense of running the helpline comes from the monthly mobile bill. "We decided to use a cell phone instead of a landline as cellphones don't bind volunteers and give them freedom to move while attending to calls. Also cellphones allow us to keep a better record of callers," says Jog, the MAGP coordinator. The volunteers take out two to three hours daily for the helpline and also meet every Saturday to discuss the latest RTI judgments and also new queries they received in the week. "There have been several instances of RTI appli cants being threatened by those who didn't the information re vealed and we have had to speak to the local police sta tion officials and write to information commis sion to give protec tion to these applicants, " says Jog.


The Times of India, 17 January, 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/RTI-helpline-wins-award-/articleshow/7301457.cms


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