Prayatna, an organization committed and dedicated to environment, good governance and human rights has successfully completed 11 years today. It has achieved national international accolades for its work. It was established in the year 2001 on 23rd April with an objective to motivate youth in nation building. Its journey started with clean environment campaign It appealed to people at large to stop unscrupulous use of polythene which is harmful for the environment.
After that Prayatna achieved unprecedented success in all its endeavours such as In response to the petition filed by Prayatna illegal mines which were working without environment clearance were declared to be closed by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh. As result of the effort the state government got revenue of crores of rupees as illegal miners paid the penalty. The state security commission was formed by MP govt after the petition filed by Prayatna in MP High Court in 2009.
In response to a petition filed by Prayatna a historical judgment was given by the Supreme Court in which it has asked the state governments of the country to notify the core and buffer zones in their tiger reserves within three months on 3rd April 2012. Number of landmark decisions were given by the State Information Commission in response to the RTI applications filed by Prayatna on various issues like MNREGA; appointment of Lokayukta in MP; EQ report of CM and his Ministers in MP are some to mention.
Today (23rd April 2012) a meeting was held at Prayatna’s office in which a major decision was taken to promote sunshine Act ie RTI Act 2005. An award of Rs 11,000 for the journalists who have done important and significant stories on Right To Information Act on the issues of Madhya Pradesh, by reporting it in either in electronic or print media, was declared. The award is named after Late Pandit Girija Shankar Dubey and will be called as Pandit Girija Shankar Dubey RTI Award. It will be given annually. The award is to be given in the month of October every year. The details relating to award will be given very soon.
Some other decisions that were taken in the meeting were to start campaign for effective e-governance especially the S.4 of the RTI Act 2005 relating to proactive disclosure, demanding for emails of public figures like Governor, CM, CS and Ministers and other important officers, to be made public so that people can access them. To demand appointments of Lokpals under the MGNREGS. To demand CBI inquiry in Panna Tigers poaching case and to demand formation of state Service Rights Commission under Public Service Guarantee Act 2010. To demand that Art 14 (Right to Equality) of the Constitution Of India to be observed strictly in the appointments of the Lokayukta; Information commissioners; Members of Human Rights Commissions; Director General of School of Good Governance and Policy Analysis and other important public posts. Members were present-Mr Suresh Sharma, Mr Sushil Levy; Mr S K Prajapati, Mr Dev Narayan, Mr Manglu Chouhan and Ajay Dubey.
