Too many RTI pleas is waste of time: Barmer forest officer

Times of India‎: Jaipur: Saturday, July 16, 2016.

A Barmer-based nature and heritage conservationist who sought information from the forest department through Right to Information applications was stumped to see that his petitions were considered a "nuisance".

In a letter of July 7, Barmer district forest officer Lakshman Lal said Yashovardhan Sharma was plying his office with RTI applications, wasting time and misusing provisions of the Act.

Sharma said he was seeking information about whether windmills in the district had all the necessary no-objection certificates. "He told me the forest department had not issued clearances for windmills in the past three years. That was not quite complete information. We do not know if those that function here have clearances from before," Sharma told TOI.

The RTI activist, who is also district chief of Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage (Intach), said, "We wanted information on mining activities occurring very close to the Siwana Fort. Blasting material is used, and we fear this will damage the heritage site. We sought information about mining activities within forest areas, and to that question we got the response that 43 mines were functioning without the necessary permission."

Sharma said coal mines were leaving deep gorges into which wild animals were falling - the forest officer offered no information on this. He said he had followed up about polluted water from industrial units belonging to Cairn and Jindal Steel, but to these too he got no response.

DFO Lakshman Lal told TOI, "He has barraged us with so many RTI applications and we find we cannot always respond to these in time. We delayed two of his applications, and he went ahead and wrote to higher authorities saying that he 'sniffed corruption'. He has been calling people at my office repeatedly. He has sought information from 2002 - it takes time to put together information for so long. We have told him that he is free to arrive at the office and inspect the files. I personally think this is misuse of the provisions of RTI."