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Mailer
# 1
Date: 22nd July 2007
Dear Friends,
It's been some time since we were in touch. That's because I was out
of the country and have recently returned.
I met an activist named Mr. S.R. Venkatram and his joining
BangaloreGiri.com has provided an impetus to our movement. First of
all, here is an interesting description of Mr. Venkatram :
Mr. SR Venkatram, is 70+ years
old. But he is so active in pursuing the corrupt and hanging their
stolen linen in public that you would not guess from his daily
schedule his age. Entire government departments in Bangalore are wary
about any and every communication received from him. (When I went to
change the registration details to pay my property tax this year, Mr.
SR accompanied me. And despite my speaking fluent Kannada, the
officers there started playing their usual tricks before SR got into
the act and then my job was done in a few minutes and I did not have
to part with even one rupee!) He is using RTI Act so much that the
number of scandals that he has unearthed in my ward/locality (Basavangudi)
is mind boggling. One of the things that he complains about often is
that people like me are very happy to go to off to our cushy jobs, not
engage with local communities, and then complain that the city is
going to dogs. He has many ideas on how we can engage to reduce
corruption, get the roads in front of our houses tarred, etc without
repercussions from the corrupt.
I have copied him on this mail. If you are going to apply for a katha
next week and are losing sleep over it, or plan to buy a residential
property and are wondering how much you should set aside to pay off
the sub registrar and his/her fellow wolves, just write to SR - the
email is free and you may just end up not throwing away your hard
earned money
Mr. Venkatram is the face of SUPRAJAA, a group of residents
associations who have got together and he is doing a wonderful job for
Bangalore. We are proud to be associated with him.
Mr. Venkatram explained to me that one of the most powerful tools in
the arsenal of Bangalore Citizens is the Right To Information Act
(RTI). You will find a link to it at the BangaloreGiri.com site.
We decided to put this Act to the test recently and my mother, who was
facing a lot of problems with the corporation authorities in the
clearance of garbage of our house, decided to make a RTI Application.
I submitted the application at the Corporation Office on 17th July. On
20th July, five corporation officials led by the person in charge for
cleaning our area, came to our house at 7 am. They assured her that
the work would be immediately taken up. Not only was the garbage
cleared but the storm eater drainage, which runs outside the house and
which had been clogged with leaves and other debris was cleared. A
lorry came along very soon and removed all the accumulated garbage and
my mother was assured that henceforth, every day, a sweeper woman
would come and clean the front of the house, remove the garbage etc.
This was such a gigantic change from the earlier situation where for
the last 18 months we had tried running from pillar to post to get the
authorities to act to clean the garbage.
I will request Mr. Venkatram, who is now a BangaloreGirian, to give us
some further tips regarding the Right To Information Act.
Our website has also been updated on some initiatives of SUPRAJAA and
I would request you to please visit it. More details re the RTO and
our action application made to the authorities are also being updated
and will be on-line by 7 PM today (Sun 22nd July).
You will see from the above mail that the Right To Information Act is
very useful to ALL citizens of Bangalore.
Please forward this mail to as many citizens of Bangalore as you can.
If you work in a company that has thousands of employees in Bangalore,
please post it on your notice board or take whatever steps required to
ensure that it gets wide publicity.
Please request your friends to become members of BANGALOREGIRI. All
they have to do, to become a member, is to send me a mail to the email
ID prksh1@gmail.com. The application format is available at:
http://www.bangaloregiri.com/membership.txt
Let's do our bit for a better tomorrow!
With best wishes and regards,
Prakash Subbarao
Mob: 94481 37203
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