The lecture series and awards were started by the Bombay Chartered Accounts Society, Dharma Bharati Mission and Public Concern for Governance and Trust, of which Varma was part of or associated with.
The landmark Right to Information (RTI) Act, which has over six million (60 lakh) users in the country, has made governments recognise their own mistakes, said Aruna Roy, leading RTI activist and social worker.
Roy was in city on Friday to launch the annual lecture series in the memory of late Narayan Varma, an RTI activist. She was speaking at the KC College auditorium. Soon after, awards were given to those who have worked in the field of the RTI Act.
The lecture series and awards were started by the Bombay Chartered Accounts Society, Dharma Bharati Mission and Public Concern for Governance and Trust, of which Varma was part of or associated with.
Calling the RTI Act as an initiative of not the "middle class but working class", she delved on its capacity to audit the government. The RTI Act, she said, happened due to demand of people for information to have accountability and transparency. "Without that their lives would have been in shambles. There was a time when there was no information on accounts. We did not know what is there. Now that has changed. It has changed the power equation," said Roy.
She added, "There was a time when questioning did not exist. People who questioned were given all sorts of names from Maoists to now terrorists. RTI in essence is the process of auditing and it has brought in social audit where in government has to listen because we tell them what they have shown us."
She also spoke about the series of attempts previous government made to amend the RTI Act. "Over 10 lakh signatures went against it," she said adding that the scope of social audit through RTI increased its ambit with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) forming a committee which now looks to access if the public funds were used in the right place.
Roy said that the political class which has still not brought itself under ambit of RTI is still wary of it. "We wanted all those who get public funds be it political parties or NGOs to be brought under the RTI Act. Now the government has come out with a law to check NGO funding," said Roy.
"The government promised us a lot of things but not given them. Although I do not agree to the popular narrative that nothing happened in India except for the last two years, there is much more to come," said Roy.
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