ACTIVISTS COME TOGETHER TO FIGHT OBSTRUCTIONS TO RTI QUERIES BY BMC

Mumbai Mirror: Mumbai: Thursday, February 08, 2018.

Denounce civic body chief’s remarks dubbing RTI activists as blackmailers.

More than 40 RTI activists came together at Moneylife Foundation office at Shivaji Park on Wednesday and chalked out a strategy to counter BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta’s controversial remarks dubbing RTI activists as blackmailers and extortionists, and blacklisting of NGO Praja Foundation for any RTI information regarding the corporation.

After a two-hour discussion, the group decided to collectively write to Mehta, and meet him personally to protest against his remarks as well as BMC’s move to declare Praja Foundation as persona non grata. During the meeting, they will demand that the Mehta issue a circular to all BMC departments to not use the words blackmailers and extortionists and treat them with respect.

The meeting also endorsed former Chief Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi’s demand that the BMC publish all RTI queries and their replies on its website to prevent any information being misused by vested interests. “This can be done under Section 4 of the RTI Act. This will also make the public information officers more accountable as they know that their responses will be in public domain and help further strengthen the RTI Act,” Gandhi said.

The meeting also decided to launch a contact programme to communicate with all municipal corporators and MLAs to raise this issue in the BMC House as well as the state legislature. Some activists also mooted a campaign through public meetings to make public aware of the injustice done to genuine RTI activists by painting all information seekers as blackmailers.

The meeting was attended by Moneylife Foundation’s Sucheta Dalal, activists such as Gerson da Cunha, Sumaira Abdulali, Naina Kathpalia, Praja Foundation’s Nitai Mehta, Save our Land, and Bombay Catholic Sabha’s Dolphy D’Souza, Citizens Justice Forum’s Sulaiman Bhimani, and individual activists like IK Chhugani, Kamlesh Shenoy, Chetan Shah, Pune-based Sanjay Shirodkar, who championed the anti-toll campaign, among others.

In July 2017, Praja Foundation made public its annual report on public health which angered the BMC establishment. The report, based on information gathered through RTI data shared by the BMC, pointed out how the BMC had doubled the budget for its TB prevention programme despite 50 per cent of its participants leaving the programme. The report also exposed how 1 out of 3 children in BMC schools was malnourished. Rejecting its findings, the BMC blacklisted the NGO and has been denying any RTI information to the NGO.

In the aftermath of the Kamala Mills fire, Ajoy Mehta had blamed an unholy nexus between officers and socalled activists at ward level for the tragedy.