Dear All
Please see this encouraging story.
http://www.facebook.com/l/caf90;mangaloreheadlines.com/show-contents.php?id=3340 Class III student uses RTI to stop garbage near school
Lucknow, Mar 26 : To Aishwarya,an eight years old, RTI is an Act that
can work wonders.Especially since it helped her to bring to the notice
of civic authorities,the presence of a garbage disposal site in front
of her school.Not only this.
The little one feels the Act has done the expected rectifying the
wrong for her.They (those who were dumping garbage) have stopped
throwing it there, she shared more than happily.Aishwarya is a student
of Class III of a school in Rajajipuram in Lucknow.
The sight of a dumping ground right across the main gate of her school
was distressing for her each time she passed by.So much so that she
wrote to the chief ministers office requesting her to get the site
removed from the place.There was a swine flu scare then and our school
had asked us to wear masks, she said. But seeing stray dogs and pigs
loitering in the dump scared me, she said.
The girl raised the issue with her parents on a lot of occasions.But
even they could not provide any satisfactory explanation for the
cxistence of a garbage disposal site close to her school.It was then
that she wrote to the CM.In my letter,I only requested her to
interfere, said Aishwarya.But her letter did not fetch any response
and we made her file the RTI, said her mother,Urvashi Sharma.
Aishwarya wrote a three-point application to the public information
officer (PIO) of the chief ministers office seeking an answer to why
the garbage is being dumped in front of her school.Her handwritten
application had questioned the government on who would own the
responsibility if any one of us gets an infection from the discarded
waste.
It is here that the RTIs responsegiving machinery let down the
girl.Though authorities have shared the information on the site,she is
still to get the answers to her questions.
Six months after she sent the application to the CMs office,it has
been forwarded to the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) for doing
the needful. And,LMC has informed the girl that a modern garbage
disposal site was built at the place by Awas Vikas Parishad.Authoritie
s have already taken note of the fact that the site is now close to a
school and hence,dumping of garbage on the site has been stopped.
However, it is the construction at the place which is blocking the
trucks of rubbish removal department to reach the spot and remove the
garbage,said the LMC. Thus,in effect, the problem persists with the
garbage still on the site and consequently, the threat to the health
of school kids is also very much there.In fact,the parents of the girl
still await action on these two counts viz removal of garbage and
answer to their daughters query.
However,the only credit,if any,that goes to RTI is keeping the faith
of a kid in its efficiency.As a beaming Aishwarya said,I am happy that
the right to information has helped me. After her first brush with the
Act,she is already defining it as something that can make the wrong
thing right.
INS OLIDARITY
Kamayani
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