Public Hearing (jan sunwai) is creating a desired impact. Ajit Singh Choudhary, the municipal councillor of Seemapuri area, Delhi approached Parivartan**, a civil society group on June 9, 2004 and offered total transparency in the execution of all civil works carried out in this area.

Choudhary said that he has directed the Executive Engineer of this area to provide copies of estimates and sketches before any work starts. After the completion of work, he will offer each work for inspection by public, including Parivartan.
The objections to the work would be immediately rectified and only then, the payment for the work would be made.

Choudhary informed that the entire process of jansunwai and the recent order of High Court has had its impact on the contractors and the engineers of this area. (earlier Delhi High Court had ordered a few days back that Delhi police should investigate all allegations of corruption made by Parivartan after jansunwai.)

According to the councillor, the contractors and engineers are afraid of their works being subjected to postmortem later on by the public in the form of a jansunwai.

A postmortem also leaves little scope for improvement of work. Hence, the councillor offered that let the public and Parivartan find faults with the works, when the works are taking place. He would ensure that the payment is not made for any work till the objections made by the people are settled.

If this arrangement succeeds, it could offer solutions for other areas as well.

Do you have a pending work with any department of Delhi Government? Or maybe you see blatant diversion of public funds in your community or colony?

Or you suspect the new road that has just been constructed is clearly not upto the standard? Or the sweepers in your area just do not turn up for work? If you have had enough of all this, make a difference in your community by making an application under RTI today. This will make a difference in your life and in lives of people around you.


Applying Under RTI

Main Application Process

In every Department of Delhi Government covered under the Delhi Right to Information Act, a very senior officer has been designated as a competent authority. The competent authority acts as the nodal officer for the implementation of Right to Information in that Department. He is supposed to receive applications from the people, collect information from that Department and then provide that information to the applicant. In some Departments, which are very huge, a number of officers have been designated as competent authorities. However, each officer has a clearly laid down geographical or functional jurisdiction.

Any person desirous of obtaining information should apply in Form A to the concerned competent authority. Every competent authority has made some arrangements for accepting fees prescribed under the Act. The competent authority normally writes the amount of fees, which should be deposited, on the application form. This should be deposited with the cashier. The cashier will issue a receipt. On production of this receipt, the competent authority will accept the application form. He will issue an acknowledgement slip, which will contain the date and time, when you can come and collect the information.

When you go to collect the information, the competent authority will count the number of pages of information. Accordingly, he will ask you to deposit additional fees at the rate of Rs 5 per page of information. On production of receipt of having deposited this additional amount, you will get the information.

If you do not receive information within 30 days or if you are not satisfied with the response received, you can file an appeal before the Public Grievance Commission, M Block, Vikas Bhavan, I P Estate, New Delhi.

The appeal has to be filed in Form E. The Form should be deposited in the secretariat of the Public Grievance Commission (PGC). A fee of Rs 25 has to be deposited for each appeal. The appeal is accepted on deposit of this fee. Later, the Commission sends a notice to both the parties indicating the date and time of hearing. During hearing, the Chairman of the PGC listens to both the parties and passes orders whether the information should be provided and in how much time should it be provided.

You wish to seek records related to construction of a road? Or records of some ration deler? Or you are disgusted with the sanitation conditions and wish to obtain records of sanitation workers? But you do not know what records to ask for? How to draft questions? Who is the competent authority?


Fee Structure

In Delhi, people have to pay an application fee of Rs 25.

In addition, a fee of Rs 5 per page is required to be paid for every page of information received.

If you wish to inspect any document, you need to pay an additional fee of Rs 15 for every 15 minutes of inspection.

A fee of Rs 50 has to be paid for filing an appeal before the Public Grievance Commission.


**Parivartan was started as a people’s movement with no hierarchy. In June 2000, Parivartan got itself registered as “Sampoorn Parivartan”. However, due to some ideological differences, the team got split into two in Sep 2002. One team stayed as Sampoorn Parivartan while the other team called itself just “Parivartan”. Whereas "Sampoorn Parivartan" continues as a registered society, Parivartan is neither a society, nor a trust. It is a people’s movement.