Times of India: Coimbotore: Friday, May 11, 2018.
Once bitten, twice shy. Stung by reports of misappropriation of funds, the Coimbatore Corporation has refused to divulge information on its spending under the RTI Act to an activist.
In November 2015, Daniel Jesudas had filed an RTI petition seeking information on the expenditure of the civic body. He had specifically sought all the payment book details from 2011 to 2015.
Though the corporation gave him the information in January 2016, Daniel found several discrepancies and sought details for the years 2016 and 2017 as well. He filed another RTI petition for the same in June 2017.
He had to appeal after the corporation failed to give any reply. Then the civic body asked him to pay Rs 19,010 stating Rs 5 for per page. “As per RTI norms it was just Rs2 per page. So, I asked them to reduce the money. Since they refused citing larger sheets were used, I accepted and made the payment on February 20, 2018,” said Daniel.
Since then, it had been three months and he did not get any reply. After he appealed stating that he had made the payment as per norms and it was the civic body’s duty to provide information, the account’s officer sent him a letter denying information and returned his money in the form of a cheque.
In the letter, the assistant commissioner of accounts department has stated that they had lot of work load as they had tax collection due to which they could not provide information to him.
Besides, several news articles were published in daily newspapers based on the information provided earlier, the letter said. “The contractors have submitted letters objecting to giving their account details to individuals,” said the officer in the letter.
He said, “We have already given more than 2,000 pages of information on the same subject. So, giving you the same information again and again is affecting the normal work in corporation.”
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