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Rajinder Nagar Welfare Association
Citizens-nominee for RTI Awards 2009 2009
Reference Number: C439
Organization type: registered society
Nominated by: self
Why is it short-listed for RTI Awards 2009?
For setting an example in active citizenship and collective action by using RTI to detect corruption in a local road project, pushing the case through government inertness over 4 years, and getting the guilty engineers and contractor proceeded against.
One of the few democratically run resident welfare associations (RWAs) of Delhi, the Association used RTI to obtain a sample of the material used in a poorly done local road. It was one of the numerous public works in Delhi that are conceived, often without a good reason, and deliberately done badly so that government engineers and contractors can siphon off public funds.
The Association got the sample tested at an accredited laboratory to show that it was way off the specification and poor in quality. It then used the evidence to complain to the vigilance department against the officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the contractor responsible for the poor quality road.
Filing many more RTI applications and appeals over several years, the association was able to compel the vigilance department to book the guilty engineers and the contractor.
The effort resulted in arrests of three MCD engineers and a contractor and cases against each of them under Prevention of Corruption Act.
It is one of the very rare cases of an RWA in Delhi showing the collective purpose and determination to not let corrupt MCD officials get away with another theft of public funds.

Details of the nomination

The association short-listed for RTI Awards 2009 belongs to Old Rajinder Nagar, one of the middle class neighborhoods of central Delhi. It has an identity separate from that of New Rajinder Nagar welfare association.
Formed in 1992 and registered as a society in 1996, its objective is to protect and promote the interests of Old Rajinder Nagar residents. All residents of the area can become members of the Association by paying a nominal membership fee.
Since the time of its registration, the Association has tried to be faithful to its constitution, which lays down basic principles of democratic and transparent functioning. The biyearly elections are conducted without a break so that all office bearers can claim to be democratically elected. The accounts are audited annually.
That makes the Association one of the few resident welfare associations (RWAs) of Delhi that are run in an inclusive and financially transparent manner. Most RWAs in Delhi, in contrast, are dominated by a few assertive individuals who resist greater participation and keep their transactions from becoming orderly and transparent. Many of the RWAs remain unregistered and without a constitution.
The nominee Association is also one of 20 RWAs that were the first to participate in Delhi government’s Bhagidari scheme on its launch in 1999. Bhagidari scheme allows RWAs to propose projects in their area under certain heads. If approved, these projects are implemented by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and other agencies with a specially created fund.
A feature of municipal governance in Delhi is rampant corruption, particularly in execution of public works, compounded by the fact that all decision making is hidden from the public eye.
The secrecy, complex administrative and financial procedures, and technical terminology, all play their part in preventing citizens or organized bodies of citizens, such as RWAs, from making sense of municipal decision making and fighting corruption.
The fact that RWAs themselves have been functioning untidily and undemocratically, as described above, also makes them less capable of fighting corruption.
Despite RTI, therefore, it is still rare for the RWAs to play their role as watchdogs of the conduct of municipal officials.
In February 2004, Old Rajinder Nagar residents noticed that the MCD had undertaken a work to resurface with cement concrete a small stretch of dense carpeted road from Salwan Public School to Punjab National Bank.
It seemed an unnecessary project because the existing road was in fine fettle.
A few weeks after the project was completed, the newly surfaced road began to crumble, developing potholes and arousing suspicions that it was a work designed for corrupt officials and the contractor to make money.
The Association members, including General Secretary S.P. Gupta, decided that it was a fit case for further investigation with the help of Delhi Right to Information (DRI) Act 2001.
In April 2004, Gupta filed an application on behalf of the Association under DRI Act at MCD, asking for a sample of the material used in resurfacing the road.
“The sample should be taken from a spot of our choice in our presence. The sample should be certified by MCD to be a true sample of the material used in resurfacing the road and should be handed over to us duly sealed,” said the application.
The Association also sought to inspect the “details of estimate, measurement book and sketches concerning the work.”
In line with its inept and corrupt ways, the MCD stonewalled the application; it first tried to discourage the Association from submitting the processing fee and then simply refused to answer the application.
After waiting for a few weeks beyond the mandatory 30 days in which the application should have been answered, the association made an appeal in June 2004 to the Public Grievances Commission (PGC) of the Delhi government.
The PGC heard the appeal in August and September 2004, reprimanded the MCD for its remissness, and ordered it to provide copies of all documents and the sample requested. It also directed the MCD to take a sample of the road for its own testing.
In August 2004, the MCD provided to the association the copies of the measurement book and other documents that showed that the contract was executed by one Tyagi Associates at tender amount of Rs 179,917.
The sample of the material was provided in September 2004.
The cement concrete surface of the road was scraped off at two spots and sealed in two polythene bags in the presence of some MCD engineers, Gupta and another member of the Association; one sample was handed to the executive engineer of MCD’s quality control department and another was handed to Gupta.
The shoddy nature of the work became evident at the time of taking of samples; the executive engineer wrote in his inspection report that there was no brick aggregate below the cement concrete surface.
That was, however, not enough for MCD to take action against the erring engineers and the contractor.
The association got the sample tested at Shriram Institute of Industrial Research, an accredited laboratory. The result was predictable. Against the prescribed cement-sand-stone aggregate ratio of 1:2:4, the sample had the ratio of 1:1.5:7, meaning the contractor had seriously compromised the quality of the road material by adding much more stone aggregate in the mixture.
The fact that MCD engineers had done nothing to prevent or react to this fraud meant that they were hand in glove with the contractor.
Even that was not enough for MCD to take action against the engineers and the contractor involved in the fraud.
A report in the city supplement of Indian Express of October 4, 2004 quoted an MCD executive engineer as saying that though they were aware that the test report showed that the road material was poor in quality, they would like to wait for their own report.
Over the next months, the Association wrote several letters to MCD reminding it of the fraud and asking for a copy of the report of the test of the road sample that it had ordered.
Having received no reply from the MCD for almost an year, the Association made a complaint against the fraud, in October 2005, to the vigilance department of MCD. It again asked for a copy of the report of the test of the sample that MCD had collected.
After waiting for six months for a response from the vigilance department, the Association filed an application in April 2006, this time under RTI Act 2005, with Deputy Secretary Vigilance to demand information on the status of its complaint.
In response, the association received in late May 2006 a copy of the test that MCD had ordered.
According to the test, the sample of the road was found to be in the cement-sand-stone aggregate ratio of 1:1.8:5.1, confirming the shoddy quality of the material.
No action had yet been taken by the MCD against the guilty engineers and the contractor.
In June 2006, the association filed another RTI application at the vigilance department of MCD, demanding to know what action had been taken on its complaint and who were officials handling the investigation.
That application traveled over next several months from the vigilance department of MCD to the anti-corruption branch of the vigilance directorate.
In January 2007, the vigilance directorate sent a point-wise reply to the Association, informing it that after a preliminary enquiry an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act had been registered in the matter and further investigation was on.
Again, no word on what came out of that investigation for next 5 months.
In June 2007, the Association filed another RTI application at the anti-corruption branch (ACB), asking for a copy of the FIR and the present status of the investigation.
The ACB responded in July 2007, asking the Association to deposit the charge for getting a photocopy of the FIR and providing some sketchy information about the progress of the investigation.
It took the Association another 2 months to manage to obtain a copy of the FIR. It was dismayed to find out that the FIR had omitted several material facts about the case, including the observation in the inspection report that there was brick aggregate below the cement concrete surfacing.
The investigation itself looked a farce as no witnesses had yet been examined.
In October 2007, the Association made a first appeal against ACB’s July 2007 response.
After a hearing in November 2007, the first appellate authority rejected the appeal but directed the ACB to complete the investigation in a time-bound manner.
The Association was subsequently informed that an executive engineer, an assistant engineer, a junior engineer, and the contractor were arrested and booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act together with section 120B of IPC.
The long struggle had finally borne fruit.
Subsequently, in granting anticipatory bail to the contractor, in December 2008, the Delhi high court censured the MCD for constructing poor-quality roads, praised the Association as a public-spirited organization, and directed the contractor to deposit Rs 15000 to the Association – a rare gesture.
It took the Association almost 4 years to not only get the guilty proceeded against but also receive kudos from the high court.
The case has led to MCD’s projects in Old Rajinder Nagar becoming much better in quality and more transparent in execution, says Gupta.
Association’s effort has also gone a long way in making Delhiites believe that deep-rooted corruption is not without a remedy.
RTI and perseverance are the essential ingredients of this remedy.