MANOJ MORE: Thu Oct 28 2010, Pune :
One box file upon another, one tender document after another and a sea of challans, some yellowed and crumpled. The scene is from the 10X10 store room created in quick time by the PCMC medical department at its Yeshwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital to stack up information sought by an applicant under the Right to Information Act. It will require no less than a tempo or a truck to cart away as many as 56,000 pages of information.
However, applicant Vilas Medigiri is unlikely to do so as the PCMC medical department has asked him to pay Rs 1.12 lakh. “We will have to give applicant the xerox copies of the original document. Each copy costs Rs 2. So the amount comes to Rs 1.12 lakh,” PCMC medical officer Dr Nagkumar Kunachgi said.
Medigiri, 40, a businessman from Indrayani Nagar area, had sought information about purchases made, medicine manufacturing dates, expiry dates, batch numbers, tenders allotted, medicine distributed, landline numbers and cellphone numbers of medicine suppliers and other related details from the department and the information pertained to 12 years.
PCMC officials said nine staffers had spent 20 days to collect the information. “Our other works suffered as we had to put in our might to collect this information. We have made available all original documents,” stores officer Suhas Kakade said.
Shocked at the huge “medical information bill”, Medigiri said he would not pay the amount as he felt the PCMC was trying to mislead him. “I had sought information under RTI in my name only after the PCMC refused to provide information to my wife, Varsha, who is a corporator. Over the years, we have written at least 500 letters to the PCMC seeking various information. The PCMC has not responded to them. And how can they charge a corporator who is seeking information?”
Kakade said they had levied charges on the corporator as well as per the norms set by the standing committee. “We have the minutes of the standing committee with us. The issue of corporator Varsha Medigiri seeking information was raised at the standing committee meeting. The commissioner had ruled that such information should be charged.” Medigiri said he would take the matter to the State Information Commissioner. “If the information commissioner says the PCMC was right in charging me, then only will I pay up.”
Kunachgi said they too would approach the information commissioner for guidance. The store room, meanwhile, draws people who want to have a look at the piles of information.
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