Times of India: Bengaluru: Friday, March 23, 2018.
Four months
since the RTI cell at the BBMP headquarters has been closed, activists say the
move has undermined their right to seek information as approaching designated
public information officers (PIOs) to submit applications has become an ordeal.
While closing
the cell in the last week of November 2017, the Palike said RTIs pertaining to
different wards were landing at the head office, and transferring them to the
PIOs concerned was taking a lot of time. The civic agency has now put up the
list of its 502 PIOs on the website along with their contact numbers and
addresses for RTI applicants.
Ravindra Nath
Guru, managing trustee of the Karnataka Right to Information Activists Forum,
said the assistant commissioner (administration), who is PIO for the commissioner’s
office, recently refused to accept an application and relented only after her
superior intervened.
“When the
cell opened in 2006, there were only 100 wards under BBMP, yet contacting the
PIOs was difficult. Now, the number of wards has almost doubled. Most PIOs, who
include engineers and medical officers, are usually on the field and available
only at certain hours every day,” said Guru.
Prior to its
closing, the cell was receiving up to 150 applications every day, officials
said. But they now have no clue about the number. “We have been getting dozens
of calls from citizens, who are finding it difficult to hand over applications
to officers. Their email addresses haven’t been provided, so we have no choice
but to go to the office, only to be told that the officer is not present,” rued
RTI activist B Veeresh.
When
applications were being routed by the cell located in the head office to the
officer concerned, the latter had no choice but to take them up. Now that this
mechanism is no longer functioning, Veeresh said, officers may no longer accept
applications.
“We’ve met
officials from the department of personnel and administrative reforms, who had
written to the BBMP in February requesting that the cell be reopened. But since
their letter was ignored, we will ask them to issue a government order,” Guru
said.
For the
record, BBMP commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad said there is ‘no chance’ of the
cell being reopened.
Quotes:
Activists
know how to submit applications, but a citizen may not be aware of the process.
I have found PIOs absent from their workplace several times. Many officers do
not have any knowledge or information on who is supposed to accept the
application. If they do, they ask us to wait in the office till the PIO gets
back. They have broken a system that was designed to help citizens
B T
Britto, activist
People travel
all the way to the office, only to be told that the PIO is not in. Since nobody
else will accept the application, they have no choice but to come back another
time, and how many times can they do that? The officers are spread across the
city, and if I want some information on Bommanahalli, I will have to travel
several kilometres to the office. On getting there, there’s no guarantee that
we’ll find the officer and manage to submit the application
Kathyayini
Chamaraj, executive trustee, CIVIC, an NGO
Times View
The RTI Act
has been a game-changer in many ways. A powerful tool in the hands of a
vigilant public, it’s a law officials and politicians love to hate. There have
been efforts by vested interests to dilute the Act as it has exposed glitches
in administration. The present scenario in Bengaluru where citizens are
struggling to file applications with no proper system in place is yet another
way of suppressing information that citizens are entitled to. The government
must act quickly to cut through this bureaucratic tangle and ensure people get
access to information they need.
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