Times
of India: Ajmer: Sunday, 15 March 2015.
It's
literally Right To Information (RTI) 'war' at Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati
University (MDS) here. In a bid to settle personal score with each other,
professors as well as other employees of the university are filling loads of
applications under the RTI Act over petty issues.
According to
sources, 2,336 RTI applications have been filed in last six years and 450
applications in the current session. A single professor has filed 250
applications. This comes to an average two applications being filed per day.
The
applicants want to know about the last pay scale of some of their professor
colleagues and other officers, how many stenographers many professors have got
etc. Other queries related to the number of fans and coolers in different
departments, LCDs, computers and self-financing programmes in the
university.One applicant is demanding photocopy of the register of the varsity
from 2013 to 2015 which means an overall photocopy of 1,437 pages.
To provide
information, most of the staff of registrar office is busy in collecting data
leading to huge wastage of manpower.
"The RTI
should be used in a positive manner to seek information which is useful. Misuse
of this law means hindering the rights of others," said D L Tripathi,
vice-president of PUCL and the activist who was with noted social activist
Aruna Roy to initiate the RTI Act in India. He said RTI means seeking
information and should not be used as a a threat.
Meanwhile,
students alleged that there is no quality education in the campus. "We
choose the university when we do not get into the merit list of even a low
level college of Ajmer or in nearby towns and cities," said a student
Bhagwat Choudhary.
On other hand
vice-chancellor, professor Kailash Sodani accepted that misuse of RTI in the
university means wastage of manpower. "RTI is a constructive law and
misuse of this law should be banned. We are bound to provide every information
but it costs manpower," Sodani added.
Twenty-eight-years
old MDS University is sprawling over 310 hectors with beautiful landscape on
Jaipur road with 21 well-constructed buildings and three guest houses.
Currently, there are 18 permanent faculties of professor and associate
professors with extra guest faculties but the number of students are less than
1,000. There are 17 departments in which some of them are really looking for
the students.