Hazare is now pressing for scrapping the Official Secrets Act. In a brief chat with The Indian Express before leaving for Ahmedabad on the eve of swearing-in of the Vajpayee government, Hazare questioned indispensability of the Act even after 52 years of Independence. Discarding the Act would go well with the spirit of right to information, he maintained.

``Britishers wrote the Act to suit their own imperialistic purposes. The alien rulers used it to rob India,'' Hazare said. The crusader against corruption also alleged misuse of the Act at certain levels.

Elaborating, Hazare referred to his long-standing demand for a list of beneficiaries of State Chief Minister's discretionary powers granting residential flats from a special quota. ``At leastsuch a list should not pass as an official secret,'' he quipped. Secrecy could be understood in defence matters, but supressing an access to official information by overplaying the Act card was certainly undesirable, he maintained.

Hazare who also heads CAPART's western region committee on watershed management and rural development, pressed for bestowing upon the gramsabhas the rights to decide on utilisation of development funds.

Under the 73rd amendment to the Constitution, the development funds would reach straight to the village panchayats, he said adding that a gramsabha should be the decision making authority for the village. This would ensure a proper and need-based utilisation of the available funds, he added.

Hazare has called a meeting of prominent social workers from across Maharashtra next week. The meeting would deal with further course of action in his agitation for the right to information, he added.

The CAPART-sponsored model village scheme in Maharashtra was being givenfinal shape. The governments of Orissa and Himachal Pradesh have adopted his model of village development, he said adding that he was preparing to table a proposal for a national-level training and monitoring body for agencies engaged in village development.