In the past, we have helped government organizations, charities, other non-profit organizations, even private organizations to bring more transparency to their accounts or to make better sense of their financial data. This time we have a new kind of customer and we are totally excited about it.
Swaraj Abhiyan - a political organization, from India.
“Swaraj Abhiyan is a political organization in India that began on 14 April 2015. It arose from a meeting of supporters of Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Prof. Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha, in Gurgaon. The organization claims to want to transform ideology into reality and to achieve swaraj in all aspects of life - political, economical, social and cultural”
- Wikipedia.This not the first time a political organization is making attempts to become transparent. Aam Aadmy Party of India had published all their Donation details online in the past. But this is the first time a Political organization is publishing their Contributions as well as Expenditures, in detail, online. And that is what is making it really exciting.
Swaraj Abhiyan had published their financial statements online in PDF form, at the accounts section in their website. This was a scanned copy of a document they had submitted to authorities. The document served the purpose of information disclosure well but it was still very difficult to process the information in it, for a supporter visiting the site. We helped them publish the same data, but in detail, as an interactive report.
This report, accessible from Swaraj Abhiyan web site, will show them a summary of the contributions received and the expenditures incurred. A site visitor can then drill down the Contributions and Expenses to sub categories, all the way down to an individual receipt, bill or cheque issued. They can get the overall picture at the first screen and go deeper to see individual transactions. This gave the visitors the complete picture, summary and detail at one place. Visitors can also search for terms (such as “events”, “print”, vendor names) and even download the data for local use or share their findings on social networks. Searching for "Prashant Bhushan"
We look at this as a very positive trend in politics and we hope this will set the bar high for Political organizations in matters of transparency and openness. No need to mention how much trust and confidence it can bring to voters, recent events in India has spoke for the importance of transparency in a democracy.
If you are a supporter, citizen or donor, share this story with your organization and ask them to adopt transparency. And yes,
please spread the word, an informed world is a better world!