By Kestur Vasuki

Bangalore , Oct 1 (ANI): Aiming at good governance and eradication of corruption a group of thirty young men and women led by Dr. R. Balasubramaniam of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement have traveled 400 kilometre on foot and tried to create awareness on Right to Information (RTI).

It’’s Right to Information (RTI) act that leads to good governance and transparency in the administration. But the paradox is that even the urban India is hardly aware of the act.

En route to Bangalore Dr. Balasubramaniam spoke to Asian News International (ANI) and said that the RTI can bring a paradigm shift in the society.

Dr. Balasubramaniam is working in community development from past two decades. He with his activists started to march on September 4th from Sargur, of H D Kote taluk in Mysore District of Karnataka.

The 30 member team is divided in two subgroups in which one group travels on bicycle and reaches the destination first. This group creates a platform for the second group in terms of assembling the villagers, finalizing the venue and other infrastructure needs.

Poshini B T., the Programme Manager informs that both the teams then visit the houses, shops, offices and distributes the pamphlets, sing songs on RTI, and enact skits to disseminate information on RTI.

The team has covered five districts so far, 38 village panchayats, 115 villages and 10 towns and has reached to more than two lakh people. Government officers, politicians, senior citizens, farmers have stepped out with the Dr. Balasubramaniam.

In a county where dissemination of information is inadequate and common mass suffers due to corruption RTI is a weapon that can be used for good governance said Dr. Balasubramaniam.

Along with RTI, Dr. Balasubramaniam is also creating awareness on National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREG). He said that it is unfortunate that even after the act on NREG masses including urban folks have hardly heard of the scheme.

Dr. Balasubramaniam also encourages the people not to give bribe and complaint to Lokayukta if they find corruption in the system. A separate cell has been established by the Youth Movement to help the people on this.

While marching, the team members along with distributing the pamphlets also sell literature on RTI. The group has been successful in selling five thousand copies of books in a month. Dr. Subramaniam said more the information more will be the change in the system.

When people only talk of Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, Dr. Balasubramaniam and his team is silently executing it. (ANI)