Times of India: Ahmedabad:
Monday, March 24, 2014.
If you file
an RTI query seeking information from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC)
on action taken against illegally constructed buildings in the Walled City, you
are most likely to hit an iron curtain. Such is the resistance shown by the
estate department of the AMC that the civic body has failed to give any
information despite the state chief information commissioner twice seeking
information in this regard.
Last week,
chief information commissioner D Rajagopalan imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on the
estate department officer N R Baranda for not providing information on the
action taken against illegal structures. The CIC passed the order in connection
with a complaint filed by an RTI applicant, Pankaj Bhatt.
For the last
four years, Bhatt, a resident of Kalupur area, was trying to follow up on all
the complaints he had filed with the AMC against a number of illegal
constructions going on in his vicinity. Concerned over the lack of action,
Bhatt had filed an RTI to know what action the AMC had taken on his complaint.
"Despite
the leader of opposition in the state assembly seeking answers and the chief
minister's SWAGAT grievance redress system directing the AMC to look into the
matter, I was unable to get any answers from the civic body. Later even the
information commissioner's orders could not help me get answers to my RTI
query. In fact, a number of illegal commercial complexes had come up in the
central zone," said Bhatt.
Rajagopalan
noted in his order that Baranda was directed by the commission on at least
three occasions last year - on August 31, December 16 and December 31 - to
provide Bhatt the information he had been seeking since 2010. But the CIC's
order was ignored. Five months after Bhatt had filed an RTI in January 2011, an
illegal building collapsed in Saudagar ni Pol in Kalupur area. The police probe
that followed was so shoddy that the six developers and financers who were
arrested by the crime branch were let off by city civil court because of weak
evidence. "I had been reporting these illegal constructions to AMC but
there was no action. The evidence of a nexus between AMC and builders is very
apparent," said Bhatt.
No scheme
for tea vendors:
The frenzy
surrounding the prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's 'chai pe charcha'
campaign led one Kirit Rathod to file an RTI application with the General
Administration Department (GAD) asking whether there were special schemes for
tea vendors in the state. Rathod also wanted to know whether there was a
rehabilitation scheme for vendors who were ousted by road expansion and
encroachment drives. A confused GAD promptly forwarded the application to the
revenue department. Few days ago the revenue department replied to Rathod that
neither was there a finance assistance scheme or a rehabilitation package
available for tea vendors.
.JPG)
.JPG)
