Times of India : Chandigarh: Friday,
August 26, 2016.
You would
expect government school headmasters to have better things to do than to create
an exhaustive list of unmarried people of a particular community among their
teachers. But that is precisely what authorities in Haryana's 10,000-odd
government schools are doing these days creating a databank of eligible
single people from the Punjabi community!
The harried
headmasters are creating the data after a woman from Rewari filed an RTI plea
with the Haryana education department for the information. Instead of
questioning the application's intent, it was promptly sent to all schools of
the state. TOI is withholding the applicant's name as she is herself embarrassed
with the query today.
Sources say
that the woman was looking for a marriage alliance for a relative, who is also
a teacher. She filed the RTI as she simply wanted to know about a specific
teacher in a school in Karnal. But the application asked the information
officer to give the name, address and phone number of all elementary school
teachers be sent to her. The government readily obliged and thus began a
laborious exercise.
Under RTI
law, personal information can be given only with the consent of the person
concerned, making life even more difficult for the school authorities.
"We are
careful in such cases as the information can often be misused especially when
it comes to unmarried women," says P K Das, Haryana additional chief
secretary (school education).
Education
department superintendent Balbir Singh has asked district education officers of
all 21 districts to send the requisite information by email or fax. "You
will be responsible for any delay, for that you will be liable for disciplinary
action apart from penalty of Rs 250 daily as per section 5.4 of the Act,"
Singh has warned in the letter.
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