PCB takes it easy to follow RTI procedure

Times of India‎‎‎‎: Pune: Saturday, May 14, 2016.

Resident of Solapur Road Suresh Shivdasani had filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) in February this year enquiring about an "abnormally high" property tax bill he had received.

However, forget about the reply, he had a tough time even submitting the application. "When I tried to file the RTI application to know the reason behind the inflated bill, I could not even find a designated public information officer (PIO) or a nodal officer to submit the application to," Shivdasani said.

As per the provisions of the RTI Act, 2006, all public authorities should appoint a PIO to receive, process, and dispense RTI applications. The Act also mandates the authorities to ensure proper awareness among citizens regarding application procedures and fees required. Shivdasani, however, alleged that the PCB lacks in all these aspects.

"I am more than glad to pay the required fees, but there has to be someone to guide me through the process. If nothing else, someone should at least be there to accept the application," Shivdasani said, adding that he is yet to receive a comprehensive reply to his RTI enquiry.

And Shivdasani is not the only one in the PCB limits facing such a situation. A lot of citizens with various complaints, ranging from civic to tax issues, have claimed that the RTI process at the PCB is tedious enough for them to avoid it altogether.

"I had received an exorbitant property tax bill last year. When I tried to file an RTI application, I was left utterly disgusted by the way PCB officials treated me. Finally, I had to give up on the application and paid the entire tax amount grudgingly," Shaikh Yusuf, another Cantonment resident, said.

When contacted, the PCB officials rubbished all the allegations, saying all requirements under the RTI Act have been met by the board.

"Such allegations are baseless. We do have a chief public information officer and other officials to assist him. If anyone is not satisfied with the reply, I am the empowered appellate authority, whom citizens can appeal to," Sanjeev Kumar, CEO of the PCB, said.

As far as awareness is concerned, he said, the PIOs always guide the citizens about the process. "We can only attend to the queries for which we have the information," he said.