Free Press Journal: Mumbai: Wednesday,
September 12, 2018.
Government has no interest in ensuring
transparency in working of Municipal corporations in Maharashtra. The
three-member committee appointed to recommend measures to ensure transparency
in the working of all municipal corporations including Mumbai, is gathering
dust for the past 132 days, as per the information provided to RTI activist Anil
Galgali leading to speculation about the intention of the government in
implementing the recommendations.
RTI activist Anil Galgali had sought
information from the Urban Development Department of the Maharashtra government
seeking copy of the report of the three-member committee comprising senior
retired IAS officers namely Gautam Chatterjee, Sharad Kale and Ramnath Jha for
the purpose of suggestions of measures to ensure transperancy in working of all
municipal corporation in Maharashtra including Mumbai. He also sought the
details of action taken on the report which was handed over to UD Principal
Secretary Manisha Mhaiskar on March 31, 2018.
In response to the query, Sachin
Sahasrabuddhe, Under Secretary of the UD department replied that, since the report
is in submission no information can be provided on the same. The Maharashtra
government had constituted a committee of three retired senior bureaucrats
namely Gautam Chatterjee, Sharad Kale and Ramnath Jha for recommendations of
measures to be adopted for ensuring transperancy in the working of the
municipal corporation and had directed the report to be submitted within three
months of the constitution. Now almost 132 has passed that the report has been
handed over and the government has yet to look into it regretted Anil Galgali.
Galgali further stated that in the state the Right to Services has already been
implemented and yet the bureaucrats have no time to look into a report for 132
days is in itself sad. He said it’s time that CM himself should look into the
matter now.