Jamal Mecklai: Getting Bombay back

MARKET MANIAC

Sunil, a young man who worked for one of our group companies, died in the bomb blasts last week. It was horrendous""we were unable to trace him for two days and finally discovered that he had passed away in the ICU in one of the overstretched hospitals on Thursday morning. We also discovered that it took more than five hours to get him from the blast site (Mahim) to the hospital (Sion). It was such sadness for us all, and a truly traumatic tragedy for the family. May God give them strength to raise their heads soon.

But, as this tragedy consumed my mind, I realised that if all the money that had steadily been stolen from the railways by government officials, past and present, had been properly spent instead, perhaps there would have been better emergency services at the railway stations and perhaps Sunil (and many others) would be alive today. And if all the money that had been steadily stolen from the city of Mumbai by government officials, past and present, had been properly spent instead, perhaps there would have been better roads and hospital infrastructure and perhaps Sunil (and many others) would be alive today.

And I realised that the almost criminal apathy with which we allow our government officials to treat our country, our cities and ourselves is, in some measure, to blame for everything. While citizen action may not be directly able to influence the drivers of global terrorism, a zero corruption system would certainly have much stronger intelligence infrastructure, which may have been able to prevent the blasts from occurring. As Pritish Nandy wrote in the Times of India last week, "It's time we stopped allowing ourselves to be taken for granted ... It's time we demanded more commitment from those we pay to kee in office ... It's time they worked for their wages and ensure our welfare, our safety, our present and our future. If they can't do that, let's chuck them out." I say, let's put them in jail.

And the way to begin is with the Right to Information Act, which came into effect in October last year.

This is a hugely powerful tool provided to citizens to monitor the behaviour and practices of our elected officials. There are several organisations that are working to activate the citizenry to use this vehicle, which provides a direct, quick way to check corruption. In simple terms, any government official is required to respond to a right to information request within 30 days (48 hours if the issue on which information requested concerns "the life and liberty" of a person); failure to do so will result in a fine of Rs 250 per day (up to a maximum of Rs 25,000) on the Public Information Officer designated at every government office). While Rs. 25,000 may not seem a huge amount in certain circumstances, the reality is that the RTI Act has already struck the fear of God into most public officials and RTI requests are acted up with remarkable alacrity.

I have heard several stories, my favourite of which is about a young man who came to Mumbai from Bihar about six months ago. He found a place to live (in a jhopadpatti) but before he could find some work, he needed that ticket of existence""a ration card. He went to the office and filled out a form, and when he submitted it, a peon took him outside and told him "chai pani jaroori hai". Our innocent thought, well, I don't mind buying him some tea, but was quickly disabused of this when the peon told him he'd have to pay 2,000 rupees. The young man was shocked and offended. Of course, he didn't have 2,000 rupees, but more importantly, he didn't see why he had to pay this.

He went back to his colony and his neighbours told him to be reasonable, go and kowtow a bit, negotiate, go to the local shakha, you'll be able to get it down to 1,000, maybe 800 rupees. But the young man (from Bihar, no less) said no, why should I pay a bribe.

Instead he bided his time and watched as several new entrants to the slum followed the "business as usual" procedure and got their ration cards in a month, a couple of weeks, whatever. Two months after making his application for a ration card, the young man made a RTI application, where he asked for two pieces of information:

1) the status of his application, which he attached; he wanted to know the name of the officer who it went to and when; who it went to after that and when; and so on; and

2) a list of all persons who had received ration cards (in his area) over the two month period since his application, the dates each of those persons made applications, the date they received the ration card, and the person who approved it

The day after he submitted the RTI application, the peon from the ration card office came to his home and told him his ration card was ready. He went in to pick it up and the officer invited him in, offered him some tea and water, and pleaded with him to remove his RTI application. I don't know whether he removed his application or not, but he did get his ration card.

A true story, I'm told, by a wonderful man who is trying to get 1 lakh RTI applications in Mumbai every month. The process is very simple""I've already filed a RTI to find out who the contractor was who did the road at Cuffe Parade (which is already messed up), how much he was paid and who approved it. Let's keep the heat on the sleazebags till they turn clean. Please contact shailesh2@vsnl.com .