Civil Society Building - Gujarat

In Gujarat, PRIA's state partner Unnati, undertook a number of initiatives to further the cause of the RTI Act. A 15 day campaign was organised by the network 'Gujarat Mahiti Adhikar Pahel', of which Unnati is a member, in July 2006, for CSOs in Ahmedabad. Participants were oriented about the main provisions of the RTI Act and taught the process of drafting and filing applications. Representatives of CSOs so trained thereafter, assisted people in filing applications and approaching the concerned public authorities for demanding information under the RTI Act. Unnati(state partner of PRIA in Gujarat) took up a number of initiatives to further the RTI in the state, through various means.

Campaigns

Unnati is part of a network called ‘Gujarat Mahiti Adhikar Pahel’, which is working to build an enabling environment for promotion of Right to Information in the state.

A 15- day campaign was organised by this network in the month of July 2006, for CSOs across Gujarat, in Ahmedabad. In this campaign, participants were oriented about the main provisions of the RTI Act and process of drafting and filing applications. The representatives of CSOs so trained thereafter, assisted people in filing applications and approaching the appropriate public authorities for demanding information under the RTI Act.

The campaign received wide media coverage and on an average about 300 people visited the campaign site each day. Also, more than 1300 applications were filed each day. A signature campaign was also launched to protest the proposed amendments to remove file notings from the purview of the Act, through an amendment in the RTI Act, by the Government. Unnati succeeded in getting around 2000 signatures from the Sabarkantha and Ahmedabad districts of the state alone.

More than 35000 signatures were collected by the network from across the State and representation sent to the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and UPA Chairperson. The campaign was a huge success and was widely reported in the print and electronic media.

Training Programmes and Workshops

A 3 day residential training on ‘Citizenship and Governance’ for staff of state NGOs was organised during the month of June 2006. 32 participants from 12 organisations participated in this workshop. There were many topics discussed during the workshop, such as Good Governance, Gender Justice, Vulnerability analysis, Social mobilisation, Main features of NREGA and RTI.

The main focus of the session on RTI was to highlight the role of the Right to Information regime to achieve good governance. Information on RTI was disseminated in 9 wards of Bhachau town to 166 Citizen Leaders (CLs). 21 meetings were held across 10 wards, in which more than 500 citizens were oriented about the salient provisions of the RTI Act.