Delhi: RTI lens likely on housing societies

Times of India: New Delhi: Wednesday, 04 March 2015.

The government wants to make the managing committees of 1,200-odd housing societies in Delhi accountable to residents. For this, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has sought a study from the registrar of cooperative societies and assured the state's support to bring necessary amendments to rules to bring in transparency into the running of managing committees.

The registrar has also been asked to explore the possibility of bringing all housing societies under the purview of Right to Information Act.

The government is also planning to check the legal provisions which lay down that the state can only have a say in the matters of a society where it has a 51% stake. By this measure, there is only one such society in Delhi where the state can have objections to its functioning. To begin with, the government wants the registrar to review existing norms and ensure residents are not harassed. The concerns raised by Sisodia are fallout of complaints from residents who feel managing committees impose all kinds of charges for water, sewer and memberships. He expressed concern over frequent cases of irregularities in functioning of housing societies as managing committees are not accountable to residents.

The deputy CM reportedly said that there was need to have regular disclosures by managing committees before residents about how they were spending the money.