Meet the women using RTI to change the face of their neighbourhoods
Enacted in 2009, the Right to Information (RTI) act could empower citizens and bring significant social changes. A decade has passed but the potential remains untapped because most people do not know about the law
Social norms dictate Jhorna Begum – mother of a school-going daughter and housewife in a lower-middle-class family – is a caregiver who takes care of her children, husband, and her elderly parents-in-law.
South Goran's Jhorna Begum does indeed take care of her family. But she doesn't just look after her own family. Empowered by information, she takes care of the society she lives in as well.
In the last few years, she brought at least two significant changes in her community through the right to information (RTI) act by holding authorities accountable.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
"A few years back, when my husband caught dengue fever, I realised that the mosquito menace persisted in our locality because the city corporation didn't spray insecticide. Since I knew how to submit an RTI request, I asked them (the city corporation) if they had plans to spray medicine in our neighbourhood. I also asked them how frequently they sprayed the medicine here," Jhorna reminisced about the beginning of her journey with the RTI.
When her application went unheeded, she appealed to the higher authority for answers. This time they responded, and the manner the authority responded took her family by surprise and made them anxious as well.
"Five to six city corporation employees came to our home and told my mother-in-law that I filed a 'case' against them. When I returned home after my daughter's school, I found my mother-in-law in anguish. She was worried that I had gotten myself in trouble," Jhorna said.
The city corporation employees returned the same evening and claimed that they spray medicine regularly; they argued that people could not see it because they 'sprayed liquid medicine during Fajr time'. And hence they requested her to withdraw her application, so they do not get in any trouble.
"But I had no reason to believe them. I instead asked them to spray medicine regularly. I told them nothing would happen to you if you start spraying medicine regularly," Jhorna said.
Ever since her application, the authority has been spraying medicine regularly. They report to her every time they spray, and thus the neighbourhood was free of mosquito menace.
Jhorna also freed her locality of filth as the city corporation didn't collect waste every day due to a shortage of cleaning automobiles. After the submission of her RTI application and further follow-ups, the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) increased the number of cleaning vehicles. They built a concrete installation in her locality a few months later to ensure regular waste collection.
In the Goran area, Jhorna is not the only RTI change-maker. Several other women have been impacting society for the better through awareness and information.
Among them, Fatema Akter Suborna filed an RTI about an open drain that runs along the main street in their neighbourhood. The authority pledged to build a bridge over the drain, but the promise was never realised. Even though the city corporation hasn't built the bridge yet, thanks to her application they fixed the small road beside the open drain.
Rabia Khatun Shorna, another young woman from the same locality, got the manhole covers in her neighbourhood fixed as rickshaws and vehicles used to trip over the open manholes.
These are some examples of how the RTI has been helping to empower ordinary people. But such instances are not common; rather, only a handful of people across the country are aware of how they could make a difference with the RTI act.
The Right to Information Act was enacted in Bangladesh in 2009 so that citizens have access to the free flow of information to help establish good governance. The idea is that the citizens can seek information about anything of public interest.
For example, after the completion of a particular project, if a citizen feels the work done was not enough or chances are that the quality of work was compromised due to reasons like corruption, they can submit an RTI request to the concerned authority asking for the expenditure budget for the project.
So, how does change come when you merely seek an expenditure budget?
"Suppose you ask me for the expenditure budget, then I will have to check if I really did the work and if I bought what I was supposed to buy while responding to you, because you will visit the project physically to authenticate my claims. Sometimes when you ask for information, the authorities complete the task that they didn't earlier, before giving you the information," said Hasibur Rahman, the Executive Director of Management and Resources Development Initiative (MRDI), an organisation working to promote RTI in Bangladesh.
"We often see that the authorities didn't respond to an RTI application, but executed the work. So, the more you apply for information, the further decline we will see in people taking money without working. When the designated officer is aware that someone in his locality has a history of filing RTI applications, the next time he works on a project he will not approve a bill of payment without working," Rahman added.
How many RTIs can an individual file?
There is no limitation. You can file as many as you need to bring the change you seek. Shahidul Alom from Fulbari Dinajpur has filed more than 80 RTI requests in less than a year. "I have received a few replies, and some changes have been made," Shahidul said. "But sometimes they delay in responding, which is depressing," he added.
Hasibur Rahman said that if a concerned authority doesn't respond to an RTI request, that is not the end of the process. It entails an appeal to the higher authority and then finally to the information commission.
The Information Commission of Bangladesh (ICB) has been delegated to deal with publishing and providing information on demand of the citizens. They organise hearings based on the citizens' RTI applications.
The RTI activists said the benefits of the RTI cannot be adequately explored in Bangladesh as of yet because most people do not know about the law.
According to a national survey conducted by OrQuest, MRDI and Manusher Jonno Foundation that the World Bank and UKaid supported, only 7.7% of the 12,800 citizens surveyed across the country said they were aware of the law.
The act has its fair share of criticism. Especially section 7 of the RTI Act says none of the authorities is obliged to provide information concerning law enforcement, investigation activities, intellectual property rights, etc., to the citizens.
So far except for journalistic purposes, the overall demand creation among the common citizens has been low. "The supply side is strong. But only a few people are working to create demand," said Hasibur Rahman.
"The way civil society worked to popularise Orsaline, or to stop child marriage; if they campaigned for the RTI act the same way, many marginalised people would have benefited. Society would have become empowered through information. It is imperative to make people understand the power of information," Rahman added.
Goran's Jhorna paused her RTI activities during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now she is preparing to file new RTI requests.
"People like the results of our RTI requests. But only a few of us are in the field. If more people came forth and worked with us, we could bring significant changes in our locality," she said.
She added, "I filed an RTI request on behalf of the people of Shantipur-7 street regarding their gas line problems. The authorities didn't care much about it, because I do not live there and the situation remains the same today. But if a few people from that street filed an RTI request for their cause, wouldn't their situation improve?"
