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Geeta Raybagkar, citizen activist and associate of Anna Hazare in the RTI movement:

*We owe the Right to Information Act of Maharashtra to Shri Annasaheb Hazare. It was because of his relentless pursuit, occasionally resorting to agitations, that the Government of Maharashtra enacted Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2000. But soon it was realised that the act was fully of flaws. At the insistence of Annasaheb, the government agreed to overhaul the legislation. An experts committee comprising senior administrators like former Union Home Secretary Madhav Godbole was appoined.

*Thanks to the deliberations of the committee, a revised legislation in the form of a bill is now before the legislature. Yet, a large number of people are still not aware of the existing act and the new bill. Today's meeting has been called to make people aware of the existing and proposed legislations.

*Maharashtra is not the first state to bring in RTI Act. Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Goa and Delhi have already enforced their acts. That of Madhya Pradesh could not get President's assent, yet the chief minister there has issued administrative orders granting limited right to information to the citizens.

*We must congratulate the Maharashtra government in being responsive to Shri Annasaheb's demands and deciding to overhaul the existing legislation. This will give us a potent weapon in ensuring transparency in governance.

Annasaheb Hazare:

* I am not a compulsive agitationist. I drew inspiration for construction action from Swami Vivekanand when I was 25. I returned to my village Ralegan in Maharashtra after serving the army for 15 years and devoted myself in making it self-reliant. Mahatma Gandhi wanted villages to be the focus of our development. We concentrated on cities instead. Our economic activity is based on exploitation of humans and the nature. Mahatma Gandhi had cautioned us that if our so-called development is based on exploitation, it will lead us eventually and inevitably to disaster.

* I was convinced that we cannot make our villages self-reliant if we make them dependent on foreign aid and external assistance. Our own land, development grants from our own government and loans from our own cooperative banks are enough to elevate our economic status. I chose my own village for my experiment. Today the village that had inadequate drinking water is exporting vegetables abroad.

* Several other villages in the state began following the footsteps. Chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa invited me to replicate the experiment of Ralegan Siddhi in their states.

* I gave this background to explain that waging agitations is not my nature. I am for constructive work. But when I saw that thousands of crores of rupees allocated for rural development do not reach villages at all, that barely 12 paise of a sanctioned rupee are actually spent on development work, I took up cudgels against corruption.

* In 1989, I launched an agitation against the corrupt practice of 42 high level officials in Maharashtra. An enquiry was conducted and charges proved, but no action was taken. In protest I returned the gold medal and award of Vrikshamitra given to me by Rajiv Gandhi. It stirred up the people but not the government. So I returned my Padmashri to the President. This created a mass awakening, but the government did not move. Then I went on indefinite fast at Alandi (where Sant Dnyaneshwar took samadhi). This roused the society. Nearly 1.25 lakh people came to Alandi to express their solidarity and in the events that followed, the government had to go. A new government came in power. I asked the new government to take firm steps to root out corruption and waited for a year and a half, but while the previous government merely graduated in corruption, the new government took a doctorate in it! I had to launch a movement again. You are aware, as a result, couple of ministers had to resign and among officers nearly 250 heads rolled..

However, I realised that unless we transform the system, the omnipresent corruption cannot be checked.

* Look at the system. The entire state has a Lokayukta and only one Upa-Lokayukta, when there are thousands of government employees. How do you expect these two functionaries to be effective? Besides, they have powers only to inquire but not to take any action. That is left to the government. I demanded that there should be one Upa-Lokayukta at district levels and the posts be filled up by retired high court judges. Give them powers to penalise the guilty and corruption will be effectively controlled.

* We have to change the system. Make stringent rules on prompt movement of files. Punish those who delay.

* I identified three areas to concentrate my efforts. First is people's right to information. People are not aware of the development schemes and how funds are spent. Nearly Rs 10,000 crore have been spent on water supply in Maharashtra during the past one decade and yet there still are 20,000 villages without drinking water. That is because, instead of rainwater getting percolated and groundwater getting re-charged, funds percolated and re-charged. Villagers were left without water. So I felt it is imperative to insist on people's right to know.

* Second, I was convinced that the Official Secrets Act enforced by the British government in 1923 must be repealed, now having become redundant. Third, I decided to focus on government honouring the 74^th amendment to the Constitution bringing in true Panchayat Raj.

* I launched the agitation for Right to Information in 1999 and withdrew it when the new chief minister assured to enforce a legislation. The act came, but with a long list of 32 areas in which information could not be demanded. It was government's right to denial of information act, and not right to information act!

When I declared yet another agitation from the Maharashtra day on May, 2001, the chief minister convened a meeting of his cabinet colleagues, the chief secretary and all the secretaries on April 27 and assured us that the act would be modified.

* I said, don't do the exercise yourself. Leave it to a committee of experts. We suggested Dr Madhav Godbole, Dr Satyaranjan Sathe, justice Narendra Chapalgaonkar and Adv Dharmadhikari. Their draft has now been tabled as a bill.

* Why is the right to information a fundamental right? That is because we are a republic. People are the rulers. They send their representatives to the state and the centre. Government's funds are people's funds, because people are the government. Elected representatives have been sent there as trustees. Just as the IAS and IPS officers are public servants, the elected representatives too are servants of the people. Have you ever heard of a servant denying information to his master? People are master. Yet in our democracy, the master has no access to the information on the government he appoints. This is absurd. Yet masses were not aware of their right and those in power exploited their master's ignorance.

* I posed this query to the ministers and secretaries present at the meeting on April 27. They were talking of people's participation in government. They were talking of people's participation in government. I said, it is the other way round. It should be government's participation among people. The chief minister liked it. He has begun propagating this concept in public meetings.

* The real masters were kept in dark of their rights for more than half a century. Is this the freedom that the martyrs in the freedom struggle bargained for?

* The present act does not provide for penalising an officer for not giving the information demanded. The new bill has the provision. The information officer has to give the information within 15 days or in exceptional circumstances seek an extension of additional 15 days. The bill provides for a penalty of Rs 250 per day which is to be recovered from the salary of the officer (applause), If false information is given, the officer is to be fined Rs 2,500. If you are a public servant, you must behave like one.

* Until there is total transparency in the government spending, there is not going to be any progress.

* Who controls educational institutions today? They are all MLAs, MPs and ministers. We will now be able to know how favours were dole out to these institutions. Murky deals are rampant in the affairs of state public service commissions. We will now demand to know how do they make their selection. While some privileged candidates may get a call within two months of registration with employment exchanges others have to way for a decade. We will ask for information on those who jump the queue.

* Information technology can be harnessed to extend the right to information. Let each department open a website and post on it funds allocated to it in the budget. Make it mandatory for them to keep posting information on expenditure during the year. In rural areas with no internet connectivity, make the same information available on computers in the offices. Give printouts at a nominal fee to anyone who demands information. Do this and the intrigues which commonly take place a few days before March 31 will disappear.

* The 73^rd amendment to the Constitution is another measure to ensure judicious spending. Today allocation of funds is left to the whims and fancies of ministers. This breeds nepotism. The amendment provides for appointment of a state finance commission what would apportion funds between rural and urban areas. Funds allocated would go directly to zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and village panchayats. When this happens, ministers and MLAs will find themselves powerless.

* At the village level, Gram Sabha - the general body of the entire electorate of the village - will have the powers to allocate funds on development programmes. Most people are not aware of this constitutional provision in Article 243 of a Gram Sabha. Just as we have Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha, we have now Gram Sabha and it is at a higher pedestal than the first two. After all, gram sabha is the mother institution. Gram Sabha elects its representatives to Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha. MLAs and MPs are elected for five years, but a citizen with voting right is a member of the Gram Sabha for life. There is a bill now that seeks to make it mandatory for the village panchayat to spend the funds allocated to it in consultation with the Gram Sabha. After all, the panchayat is just the executive body. Just as the cabinet of ministers is to the legislature or parliament, a village panchayat is to the Gram Sabha. If the panchayat spends without consulting the Gram Sabha the sarpanch and the panchayat can be dismissed. Gram Sabha can take action against erring employees of the Panchayat and no appeal will be entertained. It was essential to codify it in law. This is under process now.

* These two bills when enacted will curb corruption to a large extent. I don’t say corruption would be eliminated, but surely its incidence will be reduced to a half.

* The bill on right to information has brought under its purview not just government departments and semi-government bodies, but all the cooperatives and public trusts.

* People must be made aware of these developments. We have distributed lakhs of leaflets. I have ploughed in nearly Rs 80,000 from my pension in this movement and have diverted the money I received from various awards, so have veterans like Govindbhai Shroff and Prof G P Pradhan. A large number of sympathisers made small contributions. Now people have begun to know about their right to know.

* As we launch the struggle for our right to information, let us find out the genesis of the administration's reluctance in parting with the information. We have to go back to the Official Secrects Act of 1923. British rulers looted India `lawfully'. They enforced various laws and then swindled our country. They brought in Indian Forests Act and then denuded the country of its rich forest wealth. They brought in Official Secrets Act to deny people any access to official information. Or else, how would they have continued the plunder?

* This obnoxious act should have been repealed immediately after we became a republic. People were no longer under the yoke of foreign dictators. They were the masters of the country's destiny. Pity is, the act is still there, 53 years after independence! We are after the government of India to repeal this act at the earliest.

* I have already declared, once the bills of right to information and the gram panchayat are enacted, I will take up a movement against the Official Secrets Act. We will start our padayatra from Ba's samadhi in Pune and march on to Bapu's samadhi in Delhi (Applause). I have recently received letters from Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani and the Law Minister assuring me that a bill on the Official Secrets Act would soon be moved. It is high time they did. It is a shame, we call ourselves a democratic country and still clinging on to a draconian legislation like the Official Secrets Act.

* In fact, the Government of India should also bring in a central legislation on the right to information. This had been going on since V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar and Deve Gowda were prime ministers. But things used to get stuck up somewhere. Finally, a sham bill was drafted. We opposed it. If I go by the ministers' words, it looks like this time they will soon bring in the right kind of bill.

* To conclude, corruption will not be curbed until we change the system. I have spent several years agitating against corruption. But has it been eliminated? No. At best, some sense of fear has been instilled among government employees, but corruption goes on surreptitiously. System overhaul cannot be one man's mission. Everybody has to join in. Recall the immense sacrifice made and untold torture suffered by patriots during the struggle for your freedom. Join in to make ours a true freedom. We owe it to those patriots many of whom sacrified their lives for you. Time has come for everyone to fulfil one's obligation to the society.

Lt Gen Y D Sahasrabuddhe (Retd), civic activist, founder member, Express Citizens' Forum:

…My appeal to all individual and citizens' groups to rally round Annasaab Hazare in getting the right to information enacted both at the state and at the centre. I am confident, Annasaab will succeed in his mission…

Prakash Kadaley, Senior Editor, Express Initiatives

… and my thanks to you, members of the audience, for attending the meeting in such a large number. But my special thanks will be due to you only when you start judiciously using the new act in offing, or even the present truncated act, in true public interest…

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Shri Annasaheb Hazare

Village Ralegan Siddhi

Taluka Parner

District Ahmednagar

Maharashtra

Tel: 02488-40227

I will pass on messages.

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Prakash Kardaley,

Senior Editor, Express Initiatives,

The Indian Express,

Aurora Towers, Moledina Road, Pune 411 001

Fax: 020-6131547