Greater Kashmir: Srinagar: Saturday,
25 July 2020.
Around
April this year when I urged upon the Government through a facebook post to
make voluntary disclosure on account of COVID 19 related expenses in Jammu
& Kashmir, some people criticized me as to why I was asking such irrelevant
questions at a time when we all should support and cooperate with authorities.
First of
all I don’t understand what does support and cooperation mean to many people?
Does it mean we should not at all question the Government? Those well-meaning
citizens, journalists or even activists who keep questioning the Government are
labeled with different names like blackmailers, anti-establishment or even
anti-nationals. For some time I didn’t post anything on social media related to
COVID 19 expenses, but within a month or so the same people who were critical
of my posts and write-up’s started agreeing with my viewpoint.
Initially
it was alleged that some officials in Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and Health
& Medical Education Department were looting state exchequer by purchasing
medicines, different medical equipments , chemicals and lots of other things on
exorbitant rates, but with the passage of time several other Government
officials were also found busy in looting state exchequer by embezzling funds
meant for COVID wellness centers, quarantine centers, erecting barricades,
hiring vehicles and all that . Even money that is made available for welfare of
COVID + ve patients is said to be looted in many cases as patients are not
provided the healthy food to which they are entitled to.
Those
people who were housed in quarantine centers also question the Govt for not
being supplied proper food while some quarantine centers or wellness centers in
Srinagar and some other areas were supplying high quality food to inmates. The
question is how can the Govt provide better quality food at one place and bad
quality foot at some other COVID 19 wellness center?
Voluntary
Disclosure?
Several
Govt officials who are busy looting state exchequer claim that they provide
better facilities to COVID 19 patients and persons kept in Quarantine centers.
For the last 5 months people are demanding for the voluntary disclosure of
funds made available for each COVID 19 patient and persons housed in Quarantine
Centers, but authorities just bypass these pleas? If Govt provides Rs 200/ day
for a person in Quarantine center or COVID 19 wellness center or hospital, he
or she will never demand a sumptuous meal to be served on daily basis, but it
is the moral duty of authorities to tell the citizens or at least inmates or
patients, or their relatives, how much is to be spend on each person per day?
If the amount to be spent is less than Rs 100 or Rs 150 per day, nobody would
question the authorities, but when District Administration and authorities at
Secretariat are mum people start making accusations. All these accusations
& allegations can’t always be
correct, but who is to be blamed ? The Government of course who don’t want to
be transparent at all!
The
details about daily expenses should have been made public by the Government
through social media , newspapers and on official websites on a weekly basis ,
but this isn’t done. When people like me or anybody question the Government ,
the officers at helm start yelling. The corrupt lobby of Govt officials believe
that funds under their disposal belongs to them and they are its sole
custodians. Relatives of COVID 19 patients from Tarzoo Sopore told me some days
back that their loved ones are provided food prepared from sub-standard ration
at the local Govt health center which is a COVID wellness center as well.
Similarly COVID 19 positive patients who were admitted in a quarantine center
in Budgam last month told me that they were provided sub-standard food for
three weeks.
No
Right to Know?
Recently
I had a detailed chat with a young man who was tested COVID +ve around June
end. He was sent to a COVID 19 wellness center in Budgam ( name of place
withheld) along with 15 more COVID +ve persons.
“I along
with 15 persons were never told how much money the Govt was spending on us per
day ? If it was mere Rs 100 per day, we
should have been informed at least and we would not have complained about being
served rice and sabzi daily. Wasn’t this our right ? Only once a week an inferior
meat ball (Rista) was served. The food was supposed to be cooked inside the
center but that was supplied from some other place and when it reached us it
was always cold. We would most of times order food from outside” said Sajad
Ahmad (name changed)
Purchases
on Exorbitant Rates
Civic institutions
are said to be purchasing sanitizers, masks, disinfectants and lots of other
things on exorbitant rates. Reliable sources say that in many places
sub-standard and inferior quality sanitizers have been purchased as well. Plain
bills are taken from chemists and grocery stores and then filled in by
officials in the accounts section themselves. A sanitizer which costs Rs 20 has
been purchased @ Rs 50 or Rs 60 per bottle. A municipal counselor who tried to
seek information about the purchases made by his own Municipal Council was
denied the same under RTI Act. He went public as well through social media.
If a
Municipal Councilor is denied information about COVID 19 expenses how can we
expect an ordinary citizen would be provided these details ? Irony is that not even a single municipal
institution in J&K has made voluntary disclosure of purchases made by them
during COVID 19 on their official websites or district administration websites
? This is mandated as under RTI law. A forest officer I was told was provided
Rs 50,000 by Govt under COVID 19 expenses, he is said to have spent Rs 5000 and
rest kept in his kitty. Several BMO and CMO offices are also allegedly involved
in bungling for the last 5 months. Such officials get encouraged to continue
with their criminal acts as nobody questions them nor is voluntary disclosure
under RTI enforced especially in J&K?
Conclusion
From the
last 4 months the Central Information Commission (CIC) issued several circulars
and orders to make voluntary disclosure of information vis a vis COVID 19
expenditure, but CIC’s orders seem to have no takers in Jammu & Kashmir ?
Leaving aside CIC’s order and circulars
, the section 4 of RTI Act 2005 makes it mandatory upon public authorities to
make proactive disclosure of information. At a time when people can’t go to
Govt offices to seek information under Right to Information Act (RTI) and
online mode of filing RTI applications isn’t available to people in J&K ,
isn’t it the duty of the Government to make all the COVID 19 expenses public at
secretariat level , directorate level and district level. Let people know how
much has been spent ? and how it has been spent ? Officials who are looting
COVID funds need to be identified and sent to jail. I appeal to Hon’ble Chief
Information Commission (CIC) Shri Bimal Julka to treat this article as a
complaint. A direction must go to the J & K Government to make voluntary
disclosure of COVID 19 expenses from March 2020 onwards.
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