Times of India: Shimla: Wednesday,
May 18, 2016.
Following the
directions from Chief Information Commissioner, under section 19(8) of the RTI
Act, Bilaspur district administration has initiated the process to bring
transparency in the selection of BPL families.
Deputy
Commissioner Mansi Sahay Thakur has even suggested various ways to curb the
menace of manipulations in the selection of BPL families.
In a recent
order, Mansi Sahay Thakur has directed all the block development officers to
give detailed reason for amendments or inclusion of names in the proposal of
BPL beneficiaries passed in the Gram Sabhas. She has also directed to paint the
information of families being in the BPL list on the left or right side of the
main door of the house so that panchayat residents and others could have proper
information.
An RTI query
had revealed that Himachal Pradesh has over 10,000 present and former members of
Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) included in the BPL lists of the state. A
petition was filed enclosing the said information seeking the review of the
eligibility of these PRIs and ex-PRIs. After this an RTI application was also
filed to get the status report of the said petition.
When the
complete information was not received within the stipulated period of time even
after filing first appeal, the second appeal was filed and then a notice was
issued to the Rural Development Department. After this SDMs started reviewing
the BPL selections and more than 3500 PRIs and ex-PRIs were not found eligible
and removed by orders, said RTI Activist Dev Ashish Bhattacharya.
During the
course of various hearings the Information Commission examined various documents,
recorded statements of different officials and concluded that the selection of
the BPL families are not based on transparent and evidence based guidelines.
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