Times of India: Bhopal: Tuesday, June 05, 2018.
Neemuch-based
RTI activist Chandrashekar Gaur has a problem of plenty. He has received 1,170
letters so far to a single RTI query he had filed in February. This is not the
end as letters keep pouring from all across India.
On February
25, Gaur filed an online RTI query with Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT)
seeking ‘consolidated’ information on total tax arrears in the country. “This
is an online request, so I request you to reply on my email address and online
only, and support digital communication,” he wrote in his query.
But instead
of providing consolidated information, CBDT transferred the petition to all
regional offices which then forwarded it to their ward-level offices that are
now replying individually to Gaur. To have an idea of how long this may go on,
some cities may have more than 100 ward-level offices.
Gaur often
gets up to 50 letters a day. The highest score is 90 in a day, he said. “The
day I get 20 letters, the postman is happy and says, ‘Aaj Kam Hai Sir’ (Today
it is less)’,” Gaur told TOI, adding: “It is tiring to sign for so many
letters. Imagine doing that every day.” “Seeing bundles of letters coming every
day, even neighbours give curious looks. Till Saturday, I had received 1,148
replies and 22 letters came in today (Monday), so I have 1,170 replies so far,”
Gaur said. After a pause, he added: “But still not the answer I sought.”
Gaur said the
I-T department must have spent over Rs 50,000 on sending letters to him. “This
is waste of public money. When I filed the query online and sought replies,
there was no need for so many letters. Moreover, I had sought consolidated
information and not ward or circle-level data,” he added. Gaur said replies
have come from across the country.
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