Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) is a citizens’ group working to promote transparency and accountability in government functioning and to encourage active participation of citizens in governance. SNS is an independent non-governmental organization and is not affiliated to, or supported by, any political party. SNS’s key strategy has been to assist people exercise their Right to Information using the
RTI Act. Since 2006, SNS has pioneered the effort of using the RTI Act to make elected representatives more responsive and accountable. Using the RTI Act, SNS has been accessing information on the roles and performance of elected representatives and disseminating this information in the form of Report Cards of individual elected representatives. Prior to the Delhi Assembly Elections in 2008, SNS developed report cards to inform people about the performance of all 70 MLAs in Delhi. These report cards were prepared on the basis of objective information obtained using the RTI Act. Since 2008 similar report cards have been developed on the performance of Members of Parliament of the country, MLAs of Bihar and Jharkhand and Councillors of the MCD. We have partnered with the Hindustan Times, Prabhat Khabar, the Times of India and the Outlook magazine to disseminate report cards. In 2013, with the upcoming Assembly Elections in Delhi, SNS, has developed Report Cards to assess the performance of Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) of Delhi. In addition to the work on political accountability, SNS builds capacities of citizens to use the RTI Act to obtain information on the functioning of the Government in areas such as ration, civic works, education and social welfare schemes. SNS also builds capacities of people and mobilizes them to use information to take effective action in the form of petitions, complaints, demonstrations and jan sunwais to get their development problems addressed.
