After 2-year delay, man receives RTI reply, 40,000 pages long

Times of India: Agra: Monday, 02 March 2015.

DK Joshi, an RTI activist, got the shock of his life recently when an RTI query that he had posted, evoked a reply that ran into a whopping 40,000 pages!

In 2012, Joshi had filed a query regarding the amount of electricity consumed by sewage treatment plants since 2000.

After a two-year delay, he finally got a response from the Jal Nigam. A few days back, the department sent him a wordy reply recorded in 11 bulky bundles of paper.

A not-so-amused Joshi says that even now, just one of the six questions that he had raised, has been answered.

"I got the reply only after the information commission intervened. And they have not even given a proper reply to my queries on zone-wise distribution of sewer lines and the names of agencies that are funding them," he said.

Joshi, who also serves as a member of the Supreme Court monitoring committee on water supply, drainage and sewerage in Agra, had sought details on sewer lines, sewerage treatment plants (STPs), main pumping stations (MPS) and sewerage pumping stations (SPS) laid in the city since January 2000 and the expenses incurred on their maintenance and electricity consumption.

He said that the rampant misuse of funds in water treatment activities had prompted his RTI query. "Despite so much of money being spent on the maintenance of STPs and SPS/MPS, untreated water is going directly into the Yamuna. Every year, a huge amount is sanctioned by the Central and the state governments to clean the river, but its condition continues to deteriorate," he said.

The only positive to come out of the entire affair, though, was that the Jal Nigam's two-year-delay in replying probably saved Joshi a few thousand rupees. Had the civic body replied to the RTI within the stipulated 30-day period, he would have been forced to bear the cost of printing of the 40,000-odd pages.

Meanwhile, the activist said that he would go through the voluminous reply sent to him and also petition the Supreme Court on the rampant rising pollution in the Yamuna.