DNA: Jaipur: Monday, January 22, 2018.
If you have
filed an RTI with the Jaipur Municipal Corporation and its reply has not been
sent to you, chances are that you will not be heard even when you file the
first appeal. The common man is not able to get information from the Jaipur
Municipal Corporation (JMC) under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
Mayor Ashok
Lahoti himself is becoming a hindrance in the right to information of the
common man. The Mayor has not heard the first appeal of RTI for 10 months.
Hundreds of applications are pending for the first appeal in the municipal
corporation. The applicants are made to run from pillar to post at the JMC
headquarters. But the Mayor is not hearing the appeals.
Under the
RTI, the applicant can make the first appeal to the concerned department if the
said officer does not report or gives wrong information. In the first appeal,
if the information is not received, the applicant can apply a second appeal in the
State Information Commission. The mayor has the right to hear the first appeal
in the municipal corporation. According to the rules, the Mayor should hear the
RTI appeals from time to time. But this is not happening in the JMC.
Ashok Lahoti
took over as the Mayor on December 14, 2016. After assuming office, the
Mayor heard RTI appeals for his first
three months in office. Since then the hearing on first appeals have not being
taking place. According to information received under RTI, there were 521 appeal
applications pending to the Mayor’s office till March 31, 2017.
According to
JMC sources, this figure has reached over 1,000 in the last 10 months. Former
Mayor Nirmal Nahata used to hear RTI appeals once a month during his tenure.
Former mayor Jyoti Khandelwal also maintained a schedule of RTI appeals.
Khandelwal used to hear the RTI appeals on the first and third Monday of the
month. If there was a government holiday on Monday(s), she would hold the
hearing next day.
The present
Mayor Ashok Lahoti is taking meetings of
Swachh Survekshan, doing inaugurations and laying foundation stones and
attending meetings at the BJP office. But he is not hearing the RTI appeals.
Prakash
Shukal, noted veteran RTI activist by the name of PIL Man, says that RTI is the
right of the common man. RTI appeals are not being heard in the municipal
corporation and furthermore no municipal official is ever available in the
concerned offices.
All officers
have argued that they are engaged in a clean survey.
GEHLOT
STRICTURE
Former Chief
Minister Ashok Gehlot had made compulsory for officers for hearing of the
common man under Rajasthan Right to Hearing Act -2012. All deputy commissioners
and commissioner in the municipal corporation should hear under the Rajasthan
Right to Hearing Act -2012 and the RTI Act. But the officials in the municipal
corporation are not hearing.