<< PIO Finalists

S. Raja Sekhar

S. Raja Sekhar fought general hostility towards RTI among babus to inject a large dose of transparency in Mahbubnagar district administration. He proactively made available old land records to the public and revealed as much of government records as possible. His work as PIO took a lot of misery out of the lives of people entangled in land disputes. He also performed admirably in encouraging proper maintenance of records – which he believes is one of the most important duties enjoined by the RTI regime on a public servant.

Why has he been shortlisted? Because as District Revenue Officer (DRO) and PIO at Mahbubnagar, Sekhar received 125 RTI applications, only five of which went into appeals. Of those applications, 122, or 97 per cent, were answered within statutory time limit of 30 days, many within 10 days, some even the same day of being received! Sekhar answered over 90 per cent of his applications to the satisfaction of information seekers, according to the feedback received from the applicants reached by RTI Awards 2009 Secretariat.

S. Raja Sekhar’s work and attitude as a government official, who is additionally responsible for sharing information with the public, seems to have been conditioned deeply by his socio-economic background.

Hailing from a humble agricultural family from Cuddapah district, in drought-prone Rayalseema region of Andhra Pradesh, he had first-hand experience of the profound need for the government to be fair and transparent in regulating the lives of millions of India’s small and marginal farmers. These farmers provide the mainstay of India’s agricultural economy, but are heavily dependent on the government for land administration, arbitration, agricultural services, market support, and a host of other public services, including education and healthcare. Remove ‘fairness’ and ‘transparency’ from governance, and you have a recipe for social instability and rural economic malaise. Sekar says he was the seventh child of a small farmer of Nagampalli village in Rayachoti taluk of Cuddapah district. His father died in 1963, when Sekar was 4 years old, leaving behind an economically insecure family.

It was seven years after his father’s death that Sekar’s eldest brother secured a gainful employment, which improved family’s economic health. Sekar obtained a BSc, an MSc (botany), a BEd, and MEd before joining a rural primary school as teacher. After eight months of work as primary school teacher, he became junior lecturer of botany at Government Junior College, Srisailam Project Township, Kurnool district.

Working as a junior lecturer, Sekar got through the state civil services exams in 1985 and was selected to be appointed as Deputy Tehsildar of Chittoor district, where he would work for the next 22 years.

As Deputy Tehsildar and Tehsildar of Chittoor district, Sekar also worked closely with the local community, persuading the farmers to perform Shramdaan to de-weed and recharge water tanks.

Sekar also had an experience of fighting malpractices; he says he got over 4000 bogus ration cards cancelled and helped many deserving households get ration cards. In implementing the state government scheme for distributing pattas to poor families, Sekar had an experience of skullduggery involved in wrong people managing to obtain pattas.

In January 2003, Sekar was promoted as Deputy Collector of Chittoor district, where he also worked as project officer for Drought-prone Area Project (DPAP) and oversaw NREGA work.

It was during his stint as Deputy Collector, Chittoor, that Sekar had a first-hand experience of the conflict between majority of officials who would guard government records like cobras and the growing minority of those who were determined to leak information to the Media in order to check corruption and irregularities. The advent of RTI Act 2005 handed the ‘transparency camp’ a huge advantage over their rivals, but also deepened the battle lines between them. Sekar became the public information officer (PIO) for the first time.

Amid general ignorance about RTI and lack of any training programmes, Sekar’s first task was cut out: educating himself and others on RTI law. From October 2005 to March 2007, when Sekar was promoted as Special Deputy Collector, Tirupathi, he received and disposed of 10 RTI applications. He handled two more RTI applications during his brief stint as PIO and Special Deputy Collector of Tirupathi SEZ. He continued to be appointed as PIO after becoming PA to Special Collector, Telugu Ganga Project, Nellore, in July 2007, disposing of 13 applications without a single going into appeal.

As many as 11 of these RTI applications were fully answered within 8 days of being received. Four of them were answered on the day they were received! March 2008 brought Sekhar from Nellore to Mahbubnagar as District Revenue Officer (DRO) and, again, as PIO.

Mahbubnagar was not an easy district for an officer committed to openness, says Sekhar. About 80 per cent of officials belonged to the anti-transparency camp. There was large demand for old land records, particularly related to disputes over Jagirdari land that belonged to Nizam’s time. People also wanted survey records, ‘appeal files’ and court files (related to land disputes), information on employee’s service matters, and records of expenditure of public funds. There was obviously a tug of war on the question of responding to these demands for information.

On behalf of the District Collector, Sekhar held monthly meetings on grievance redress as well as RTI compliance of the entire revenue department, sending a strong message to the ‘anti-transparency camp’. He also sent regular reports to the state information commission in order to win larger approval for an RTI-friendly regime.

“As DRO, who acts on behalf of the Collector, I enjoyed vast powers that also aided my authority as a PIO. Our District Collector, V. Usha Rani, was also very sympathetic towards RTI regime,” says Sekhar, He tried to make available as many of the old land records of Jagirdari land as possible to the public. In his 14-months stint as PIO and DRO-Mahbubnagar, Sekhar received 125 RTI applications, which duly belonged to his jurisdiction, only five of which went into appeals. Of those applications, 122, or 97 per cent, were answered within statutory time limit of 30 days, many within 10 days, some even the same day of being received! Sekhar answered over 90 per cent of his applications to the satisfaction of information seekers, according to the feedback received from the applicants reached by RTI Awards 2009 Secretariat.

“I got a prompt and complete response to my queries from the PIO Raja Sekhar, which was in line with the general belief that he was good PIO,” says S. Gopann, an RTI applicant.

G. Buchanna, another RTI applicant, says he had asked PIO Raja Sekhar for some ‘appeal case, and received the full and timely information. Syed Ali, another applicant, says he had asked for some information on action taken on a stay order by the high court, did not get complete information, but believed it was related to the department’s overall inaction in the matter rather than any remissness on the part of Raja Sekhar as PIO. There is also an interesting story of the son of government servant who had prematurely left government service in 1946, but was entitled to pension. Later his widow struggled for many years to get the pension without success. Finally, while the widow was in her 90s, his son managed to obtain some documents under RTI from Raja Sekhar to prove in court that his mother was indeed deserving of the pension.

Sekhar believes the tide is slowly turning in favour of the ‘transparency camp’.In August 2009, he was transferred to Hyderabad in the HRD department as administrative officer and again as PIO.

So his good work continues.

Click here to submit your feedback on Mr. S. Raja Sekhar