The
Times of India: Vadodara: Tuesday, October 16, 2012.
Days after
his organization informed the public about the chief minister office's reluctance
to part with details of chief minister's travels abroad, Rohit Prajapati, a
member of NGO Parayavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS) has again targeted Narendra
Modi on another RTI issue.
In an open
letter to the chief minister, which was released to the media on Monday, the
environmental activist cited a reply sent by the CMO in response to an RTI
query by him, to accuse the CMO officials of committing "a glaring act of
negligence" by admitting that they had destroyed some official
communications as per their procedures.
The RTI
application was filed by Prajapati on April 23, 2010 to seek details of
correspondence between the CMO and an infrastructure building company, related
to the inauguration of a pipeline built for dumping waste water of industries
of Ankleshwar, Panoli and Jhagadia into the sea after effluent treatment
process. The NGO has been raising questions about the project for the past few
years.
"Mr J P
Modha, officer on special duty to the chief minister in his reply dated May 15,
2010 to the application, stated that no information can be provided to the
applicant, since the official records pertaining to the chief ministerial
tenure before 2007 stand destroyed... It is difficult to believe that a
responsible and publicly accountable office such as yours, especially with your
emphasis on "transparent and effective public governance" would
destroy official records of public importance, even while you continue to be
the chief minister in the consecutive term," Prajapati wrote while
forwarding copies of the reply received from CMO as well as his own
application.
He added,
"With your emphasis on 'information technology' in governance, the soft
copies of the correspondence should be present in some official databank, or
one would assume that you or your office are deliberately withholding or
denying information that should be in public realm."
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