Honoring Sri M Padmanabha Reddy with the American Telugu Association (ATA) Excellence Award in Community Service at ATA 2023 Grand Finale Program.

Electoral Reforms :

1. Criminalization of Politics : To avoid people with criminal record entering into politics. Efforts were made to collect information about the antecedents of contesting candidates and the criminal background of such candidates was exposed through media just before the elections so that people will have information before he votes.  Added to it the antecedents of elected persons M.L.A.s/M.P.s are also published.  The details are available in Forum for Good Governance Website fggindia.org
2. Disposal of cases booked during Elections : Electoral offences and election code violations are not taken seriously once the elections are over.  During last general elections (May 2014) hundreds of crores of money and huge quantity of liquor for bribing electors was seized.  Painstakingly the data was collected from police and excise departments  analyzed and brought to the notice of Election Commission of India.  The Commission has addressed to high court for speedy disposal of such cases and the court nominated a judge for each district to expedite the matter.
3. Education : Since last about 2 years many universities in both the states are understaffed and without Vice Chancellors. Filing R.T.I. applications university wise information was collected and representation made to authorities.  As usual, there was no response from government.  Finally P.I.L (155/2015) filed in the high court which directed the government to fill up the V.C. and other posts with in 3 to 4 months.  The process has started.
4. Police Reforms : Conducted workshops with eminent personalities of police, Judiciary and civil societies. The recommendations of work shop are sent to government with a request for police reforms and a new police Act on the lines of Kerala Police Act.
5. Irregular amendments to GHMC Act : Government of Telangana in a move to regularize the unauthorized constructions and layouts have issued G.O. amending the Act to facilitate regularization of buildings.  The move was challenged in the court and court stayed the G.O.
6. Housing Programme : Government of Telangana has taken up double bedroom housing programme. While over emphasizing the new programme, the government has forgotten the old Indiramma Housing Scheme where in about 5 lakh houses were in different stages of construction and neglected after 2014.  Information collected through R.T.I., analyzed and P.I.L. filed (233/2015) was in the high court.  The court directed the government to complete the incomplete houses by clearing pending bills.  During last about 6 months nearly one lakh houses were completed and people moved into them and balance are at various stages of completion.

Case Study :

1. Key objectives of the project. To achieve Good Governance the nominee has organized a civil society platform called Forum for Good Governance with the following objectives.

OBJECTIVES :

• Campaign for much needed decentralization and reforms in administration
• Enable people to resist corrupt practices in administration
• Build public opinion for the overdue electoral reforms.
• Resist the state abdicating its primary responsibility in providing good quality education and health services to all.
• Build public opinion for the overdue electoral reforms.
• Promote awareness of the citizens rights in relations to the institutions of the state.
• Work for the establishing a politically neutral police force accountable to the community.

Impact of the work :

1. Elections to Gramapanchayti, M.P.s & Z.P.s were due in the year 2012. The then government of A.P. avoided conducing elections, may be out of fear of losing elections, due to disturbed conditions in the state.  The nominee made representations to authorities for conduct of elections.  As there was no response from Government, P.I.L (25998/2010) was filed in the Hon’able High Court, the court directed the state government to conduct elections state government took up the matter to Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court upheld the order of high court and directed the state government to conduct the elections in two months.  In this way Panchayat elections were conducted in January 2014 in the erstwhile state of A.P.
2. Elections to GHMC were due in November 2015. Government of Telangana, due to various reasons of its own was not willing to conduct elections.  As there was no effect of repeated representations, P.I.L. (3/2015) was filed in High Court .  The Hon’able High court directed the state government to conduct the GHMC elections in period of 6 months.  As per court directions GHMC elections were conducted in January 2016.

Work of nominee of different stake holders :

As explained earlier the initiative taken by the nominee in exposing criminals in politics, appointment of V.C.s and Information Commissioners getting stay orders on building regularization scheme has a far reaching effect on society.  The initiative taken to see that 5 lakh incomplete Indiramma houses has helped lakhs of poor people in the villages of rural Telangana.

Work to Sustain and develop over the next 5 years :

The activities taken up by the nominee has encouraged many sister civil society organizations and individuals to file R.T.I. applications and expose the corruption cases.

The initiatives for Good Governance through decentralization, electoral reforms, police reforms, exposing the corruption and corrupt officials will continue and in the process replicated through net working.  So far the nominee has filed nearly two thousand R.T.I. applications and information obtained is analyzed and brought to the notices concerned officials for corrective steps.

Note : Please visit Website for details of the work done by the nominee.  The articles published by nominee in various newspapers and discussions in visual media.