Times of
India: Bengaluru: Thursday, September 27, 2018.
The
general impression might be that it is easy to get information of public
interest through the Right To Information (RTI) Act. But the truth is
otherwise. Forget the common man, even a former minister has not been able to
get the Bangalore Development Authority’s reply to his query about stray sites
after five years.
A
two-time MLA from Kalaburagi and former labour minister, SK Kanta, in December
2013, posed two questions under the RTI Act to the Bangalore Development
Authority (BDA) and till date, he hasn’t got a reply about them. He had sought
to know the number of stray sites allotted between 1998 and 2012 and allottees
(with site number, name and address of the beneficiaries), according to
documents with TOI.
Stray
sites are those acquired by the BDA when the allottees fail to pay money
towards them in the stipulated time or those surrendered by the allottees.
Kanta
suspected a scam in allotment of stray sites and hoping to expose it, filed the
RTI queries. But little did he know that his effort would be stonewalled. After
waiting for a month, he realised that he would not get it.
He
approached the BDA secretary, who also did not respond to the query. He later
took up the case with the Karnataka State Information Commission. There have
been a couple of hearings in the last five years, but no BDA representative has
attended them. The last hearing was on September 16 and again, none from BDA
was present.
Kanta
alleged that the BDA is suspected to have converted rows of sites into stray
sites and the same have been appropriated by vested interests through dubious
means.
According
to norms, 30% of stray sites should be auctioned, 30% given to social workers
and 40% allotted to achievers from the state in various fields.
“If
things were on the right track, I don’t think they would take five years to
answer my two questions. Their inaction creates a lot of suspicion,” he added.
L
Krishnamurthy, state chief information commissioner, said he came to know about
the matter recently and will take it up. BDA commissioner Rakesh Singh said he
was not aware of this specific issue, but promised to get back on the same.