Economic
Times: New Delhi: Tuesday, 23 June 2015.
Some crucial
files related to funds spent on media publicity for the Central Information
Commission's annual conventions during last two years are not "readily
traceable", an RTI response shows.
The CIC,
which is also a watchdog for record keeping in the government offices, in a
recent response to activistLokesh Batra said that the files related to
expenditure on publicity are not "readily traceable".
The central
government had allowed the transparency panel to spend Rs 12 lakh for
organising its annual conventions besides Rs 64.81 lakh and Rs 7.50 lakh, for
media campaign through DAVP and advertisement in Air India's in-flight magazine
respectively.
When Batra
sought details of on media expenditure sanctioned by DoPT, CPIO of CIC, S K
Rabbani said, "...In this regard, it is informed that the concerned file
pertaining to organising convention/ events is not readily traceable. Requisite
reply will be sent as the concerned file is traced."
The
Commission, however, gave figures of expenditure incurred on its annual
convention saying Rs 12.06 lakh had been spent for the above Annual
Conventions/Events during 2012-13.
"Rs
14.16 lakh had also been incurred during 2013-14," he said in a separate
response to Batra.
Batra said it
wass not the first time that CIC has responded to his RTI saying file(s) are
not traceable.
"It
clearly indicates poor management of records keeping in the Commission. Irony
is that what commission preaches does apply in its home.
"The
analyses of expenditure reveal that instead of maintaining austerity keeping
with the spirit of the RTI Act, CIC had been doing wasteful expenditure of
taxpayer's money on five star hospitality and expenditure on items those can be
easily dispensed with," Batra alleged.
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