Times
of India: Mumbai: Tuesday, 17 November 2015.
There seems
to be no record of the travelling expenses incurred by the FTII chairman over
the past 15 years. Turning down RTI activist Anil Galgali's plea in the matter,
the institute has said the information is not available.
Galgali had
filed the RTI plea on August 26, seeking records for the past 15 years. At
first, FTII deputy director S K Dekate had told him that the information would
be made available within three weeks. Galgali also sought to know who
sanctioned such tours. The institute replied that the director approved
domestic trips himself, while foreign trips were cleared by the I&B
ministry.
But no
information came through on the expenses within the mandatory 30 days of filing
the RTI query. On October 29, Dekate informed Galgali that the billing section
was concerned only with the payment of bills submitted by various sections or
departments of the institute and did not deal with the approval of bills.
Besides, the FTII did not maintain accounts of individual students, staffers or
suppliers. Therefore, information on the chairman's travel expenses was not
available.
As per
section 4(1) of the Right to Information Act, this is among the mandatory
disclosures. "Firstly, they informed me that they'll give the information
within three weeks, and then they denied the same," said Galgali.
"I've now written to the I&B ministry to make such information
public."
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