The past few months I have been having sort of struggle with National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).
It all goes back to the school for migrant laborers children. The migrant laborers come into Kanpur and other cities to work in the brick kilns. The work starts in October and lasts till April or so. At that point the laborers go back to their village, only to come back to the city in October.
Jagriti Bal Vikas Samiti has been working with these children for past 20 years or so. One of the things they have done is to open a school to educate these children. The school has classes till eighth class. The NIOS conducts examinations for these children as well as for secondary and senior secondary children. The children have to enroll for the examinations in August. The problem that confronted Jagriti was that the children enroll in their school only in October so how can they enroll for the examinations in August?
So I was asked whether I can talk to some one in NIOS and see if something could be done. I nodded yes.
Easier to nod than to do it! Every day for two weeks I tried calling up NIOS. It did not matter at what time I called, which day I called, or which number I dialled, I never got a response. No one would even answer the phone. The one time someone answered the phone told me that the enrollment is in August.
Then Appa suggested that I email them. I emailed the director, the secretary, and even the Chairperson. No response.
Finally I got rather frustrated and said "I feel like slapping an RTI on them."
Which is what we did.
On Friday, flustered person (Incharge of examinations sections) called, apologized, and gave me the information I sought. We have to do some paperwork but hopefully, the children of the school can now get their eighth class certificate.
So you see RTI works!
But that is not the point. The point is that this information should have been provided when we first tried to get in touch with them. Some one should answer the phone, some one should answer the email.
Of course it does not happen that way.
For the past few weeks I have been struggling with MTNL. Neither my phone nor my internet works. If it works, it does so intermittently. I have booked complaints with 198 but to no avail. I have called their call center about my internet problem but every time I am assured that it would be repaired within 24 hours. I do not know when 24 hours start and when they end.
Finally, I have no recourse but to call either the Area manager or the Junior engineer and try to get it repaired.
It is such a waste of time and energy!
5 comments:
I think you make a very good point. Ideally, the Right to Information law should not be a tool to get routine jobs done. It is a measure of the indifferent ways of our government that one has to resort to the RTI act to get such a simple job done.
I am happy that you have been able to achieve your objectives in this instance but - call me a cynic - I am sceptical as to how effective the law will be over the long haul. Don't get me wrong: I don't doubt that the law will be a useful tool in individual cases, but whether the law will help beyond those individual cases is another matter...still, better to have the RTI law than not have it.
Right now, every one is unsure of what the law is really about. So of course we get answers. But I am quite sure our section officers will very soon figure out that even if they do not provide answers to our questions, nothing much can be done. Oh sure the person asking pesky questions can appeal but given the number of appeals pending it is unlikely that your particular appeal will be heard any time soon. So big deal...but till they figure out we can use the RTI to get them to work.
i can't help thinking that most people don't even know that the law even exists, or that it works (at least for now), and that they have a recourse. even if they do, they might not have the time or ability to do the paperwork.
what if there were a nonprofit whose aim was to educate people about the RTI act, help them file requests, and follow up with appeals or whatever is supposed to happen? the idea is that by pooling people's resources and knowledge together, the effort involved can be greatly reduced.
of course, it will need funding. there's a lot of money flowing into charities that don't work, maybe some of those could be funneled into an organization like this. i'm sure many people would like to give money to a cause if they feel that they're helping fight corruption; i know i certainly would.
what do you think??
Arvind, there are many NGOs who are doing exactly what you are suggesting. But there is still scope because large sections of people still do not know about RTI or how it works or what can be done by using it. The single major consideration while filing RTI is the framing of questions. The answers, after all, depends on the question asked. The rest of it is not too tough.
There are many funding agencies, including Asha, which supports RTI initiatives. Funding is, therefore, not a problem.
that's good to know. thanks!
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