Times of India: Pune: Thursday, March 21, 2013.
A right to
information act (RTI) query has revealed that the Pune Municipal Corporation
(PMC) doesn't have information as to where the money earned from tree tax has
been spent.
"The
civic administration charges 1% tree cess in the property tax bill, for
conservation of trees. The money thus collected is supposed to be used for tree
plantation and conservation," said activist Vinod Jain, while addressing a
news conference here on Wednesday.
Jain, who
filed the RTI application, said that the PMC has collected around Rs 33 crore
from tree cess in the last ten years.
"We
asked the PMC as to where has it utilized this money. We also asked for a map
of locations where tree conservation/plantation was taken up and had sought the
information in the form of a soft copy. The civic officials said that they
didn't have any idea about the locations," he said.
When
contacted, Ashok Ghorpade, garden superintendent said, "The matter is in
the court. So, I will have to look into the data to check what information was
sought and what information was given in response to the RTI application."
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