The second lot of the 5-day training on practical use of RTI organized by the freedom1 Forum in its Office,
Thapathali, Kathmandu, from September 17 has successfully concluded.
It was organized as part of the strategic campaign for promoting demand for information so as to produce a strategic group of RTI activists and promote its practices at local level in a sustainable manner.
FF Chairman Taranath Dahal distributed the certificates to the trainees, and urged them to materialize the Action Plan they formulated during the training.
Similarly, training facilitator and FF member Dharmendra Jha said the training has empowered the understanding level and it would be a great tool to boost up local development in transparent way.
Another facilitator and facilitator at RTI Support Centre, Sanjeeb Ghimire said with this training number of RTI activists has increased which would render positive impact on information taking and giving system.
From the trainee’s side, Maya Devi Bhandari from Jumla district expressed gratitude to the freedom1 Forum for providing such opportunity to learn about RTI and its implementation in Nepal. The knowledge she gained during training would be utilized in the local level.
“I begin the use of RTI from my home because my father is a chairman of the local school,” she added.
All of the trainees made commitment that they would fully implement the action plan they formulated in the training and try to make local public bodies transparent and accountable.
The training was facilitated by FF Chairman Dahal, member and journalist Dharmendra Jha, Facilitator at RTI Support Center at FF Sanjeeb Ghimire, FF Executive Director Krishna Sapkota, a government undersecretary Sher Bahadur Dhungana (guest lecture) and Pranav Bhattarai, an RTI activist.
During the practical training, the participants were imparted theoretical session in the morning and thorough practical session in the afternoon. It was aimed at making them able to identify cases of filing application demanding public and individual service related information, practice the entire processes involved in requesting information, follow-up of the request, complaint and appeal in the line with the RTI Act 2007 and Regulations-2008.
In the practical session, the trainees visited different public bodies and filed applications seeking information on different sectors as health, education, electricity and others.
Similarly, they were taken to the National Information Commission for exposure visit on September 20, 2012. They visited the RTI Centre in the Commission, held interaction with the NIC Secretary, Commissioners and officials.
During the interaction with the NIC officials, Acting Chief Information Commissioner Shree Acharya briefed about the Commission and urged the trainees to best utilize the RTI for good governance and transparency.
It is compulsory for each intern that they file five applications that include three public interests information and two relating personal services such as pension, scholarship, government allowance, health, education etc.
The trainees of this lot are Dhruba Kumar Jha of Mahottari, Bijay Raj Joshi of Bajhang, Bishnu Prasad Sharma of Nawalparasi, Khadak Bahadur Budha of Jagarkot, Basant Banjade fo Kapilvastu, Surjan Rokaya of Kalikot, Badree Narayan Yadav of Siraha, Sagar BK of Bara, and Maya Devi Bhandari of Jumla.