The Hindu: Bangalore:
Sunday, January 29, 2017.
Even as
Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and the State government continue to
claim that they have nothing to hide on the controversial steel flyover project
in the city and are completely transparent about it, the development authority
has turned down multiple RTI Act queries in connection with the project.
The reason
cited by the BDA: “Giving out this information is not suitable since multiple
organisations have approached the courts to scrap the project. The information
sought pertains to the working of the State and its interests.” The BDA
reiterated its stand during the hearing on an appeal last week.
An RTI query
by Priya Narayan on November 14, 2016 only sought details of public
consultations the authority made over the project details of the advertisements
placed, the email id given out, and details of people and experts consulted
over the project’s implementation. “We fail to understand how giving out details
of public consultation is against the State’s interests,” said Srinivas
Alavilli of Citizens for Bengaluru, which is opposing the project, on Saturday.
Tara
Krishnaswamy, another volunteer of the CFB, said it was a travesty that the BDA
is fighting legal battle to implement a project so vociferously opposed by the
public, using tax payers’ money. “On top of that, the BDA turns around and says
it cannot share information since it is against the State’s interests in the
court. This shows the State government hasn’t been truly open about the
project,” she said.
BDA
Commissioner Rajkumar Khatri said the authority had replied to queries within
the limitations of the RTI Act, 2005. “We have uploaded everything we have [on
the project] on our website. We cannot reveal information pertaining to
business interests,” he said.
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