Pradeep Kumar, BDO, Bilaspur

Pradeep Kumar was only 26 when he became the Block Development Officer of Lahaul in Himachal Pradesh in November 2006. This was the same year when the RTI Act was enacted in the state. For a young officer like Kumar, the Right to Information (RTI) Act was very revolutionary and implementing RTI was a tough job. Four years down the line, Kumar, with sheer dedication and patience, overcame all the difficulties to bring about transparency in the entire system. Kumar, who has now taken over the charge as the BDO of Bilaspur, by his exemplary performance is setting an example for many fellow officers. He says, “The RTI Act is the best Act ever in India and over the world. In Scandinavian countries, the corruption level is very low and transparency is very high due to the RTI Act. Similarly, as RTI spreads in our country the corruption level will go down tremendously here as well.”

Kumar’s statistics speaks volumes for himself. Out of the 65 applications that he disposed, he did not deny information to a single applicant according to the data. He gave satisfactory information in almost all the cases within the stipulated time period of 30 days. When we called up the appellants for their feedback on Kumar’s work, nearly 95.8% people reported satisfaction with the information that they received. Only one of his cases went into second appeal. Kumar explains that this case was received by his predecessor and was handed down to him when he took charge. In this case too, he handed over the information to the person concerned during the second appeal hearing, thus satisfying the appellant. Pradeep Kumar says, “I have great trust in the RTI Act, but I do not wait till a person files an RTI application to get information in my office. I give information to even those people who come up to me and ask for the records even without an application. I believe in complete transparency and pro-active disclosure.”

Kumar who completed his M-Tech from Delhi in Agriculture Engineering always wanted to be a Government servant. He says, “My mother is a government servant as well and this inspired me to join services.” He got his opportunity when he cleared the state services examination. In 2006, he joined as the Block Development Officer of Lahaul. His journey in a way is an indicator of how the Act slowly evolved in the past five years and the penetration of RTI Act in the country.

When he joined services, the Act was new and very few people had awareness about it. Slowly and gradually as the Act evolved so did the penetration and the reach. He says, “Initially when I was posted in Lahaul, I used to receive very few RTI applications as Lahaul is a little interior area. The RTI Act had come about in HP in only 2006. Therefore, the number of applications that used to come was very less.” Slowly, the number of applications grew. In Bilaspur, the number of RTI application that he gets is very encouraging. He says, “The Bilaspur Block is bigger in comparison to Lahaul Block. And moreover, awareness about RTI has also increased during the past five years. Therefore the number if RTI application is much more.” With the ongoing panchayat elections in full swing, Kumar claims that he has been receiving atleast 10 applications per day.

On quizzed about how the Act has helped people he says, “There are two-three things that I have understood during my tenure as a PIO. One is that the Act is as deterrence against corruption and two it has brought about empowerment. Now since people know that anyone can ask for their records, they want to keep their records straight and not indulge in corruption.” He goes on to say that in the past few years in his state, the level of corruption has gone down tremendously thanks to the Act. If followed in other states, India could soon become a corruption free country.

However, all is not well with the Act. According to Kumar, when on one side RTI has brought about openness in the system, there are some problems with it as well. He says, “As per the rules in Himachal, in one RTI, one can ask questions related to one particular subject and for one particular year only, but there are people who seek information for the last 10 or 20 years and about various issues in a single application.” So how does he handle such cases? He says, “Though people have become aware about the Act, they are still unaware about how to use it. When I get such applications, I counsel people on how to use RTIs correctly and then give them all the information. He recalls a case in which a person come up to him and asked for many years documents related to various development schemes like the NREGA, IAY, etc of 44 blocks. He says, “In this case, I first explained the provisions of the RTI Act to the person and counseled him on how to use the Act so that he could follow the correct procedure in future, but even then I did not deny it. I then transferred the application to the respective panchayat secretaries and asked them to grant file inspection to the applicant which they duly did.” The applicant then received all the information. He explains that such applications sometimes tend to cripple the Government machinery. Since RTI Act is a very responsible Act, people should also use it appropriately.

Another issue of concern according to Kumar is that people ask for information in the name of others who hold a BPL card as people who are BPL do not have to pay the requisite fee and also get all the information free of cost. He says, “There are many people who use other people’s BPL identity for getting information, which is a misuse.” At the same time, Kumar quickly adds, if the intentions of the person who is applying for the information is good then there is no issue.