‘Parrikar denying RTI info to hide corruption’

Times of India: Panaji: Thursday, 18 September 2014.

It is almost impossible to get information under RTI under the present Manohar Parrikar-led BJP government, proving that the government is scared that its rampant corruption will be exposed, alleged Curtorim Congress MLA Aleixo Reginald Lourenco on Wednesday.

Briefing mediapersons at Congress House in Panaji, Lourenco said that his RTI applications to various government departments are gathering dust and the public information officers (PIOs) are giving all kinds of excuses to deny the information. PIOs say the information is voluminous, or that it is there on the websites which have not been updated or that the pertinent file is missing, he said.

Lourenco said that even the state chief information commissioner Leena Mehendale has openly told mediapersons that the PIOs in various government departments are not giving information to RTI applicants and also do not appear before her if she issues notices to them. Mehendale has openly claimed that the BJP government is non-supportive of the information commission, Lourenco said.

"This is the Parivartan of the two-and-half-year-old government of Manohar Parrikar. If the government is not corrupt, why is it afraid to give information under RTI?" Lourenco questioned.

Asked if the previous Congress government in its first two and a half years was not corrupt, Lourenco said that Congress corruption was a hype created by Parrikar, and at least the Congress government had not blocked any information under RTI. "In the remaining two and a half years, we will prove that his government is corrupt and no where near to what he had promised before the elections," Lourenco said.

The Curtorim MLA also blamed Parrikar for shielding chargesheeted minister Ramesh Tawadkar. Lourenco said that the previous Congress government of Digambar Kamat had stripped its minister Dayanand Narvekar after he was chargesheeted in a case. "But though the Supreme Court has opined that ministers should not have cases against them, Parrikar has kept a chargesheeted minister," he said.