TOO cheap.
That’s what Assistant Municipal Commissioner (C Ward) and Public Information Officer Anil Manohar believes is the biggest problem with information being doled out under the spunky Maharashtra Right to Information (MRTI) Act, 2002.
You could have brushed aside Manohar’s opinion. Only, he charged six applicants Rs 50 per page of information he supplied. Under the schedule of the Act, the maximum charge—unless already specified—is Rs 2.50 per page.
‘‘My mistake,’’ Manohar admits candidly. ‘‘The applicants have been contacted and the refund process is on.’’
But Hema Sampat (51), a school teacher, has not heard about her money.
| | What Hema Sampat was overcharged for |
| • For two years, the Rs 70 lakh annual budget for cleaning house gullies lay unused by the C-Ward office
• In 2003-04, the budget jumped to Rs 1,56,75,000. Less than Rs 28 lakh was spent
• The number of complaints received is simply ‘‘not recorded’’
• Finally, it says Sampat should educate residents against dumping garbage in house gullies |
Sampat lives in stifling Kalbadevi, the view from her spacious fourth floor home a contrast of the azure seaside and densely packed buildings of traders, cloth merchants, gold units and Gujarati and Marwadi families.
On June 1, weary of the grimy house gullies—two-foot-wide lanes between buildings—Sampat sought details on their maintenance.
She was charged Rs 120—Rs 50 per page for two pages, plus speed postage charges.
‘‘I casually enquired why,’’ Sampat says. As a student of a diploma course in human rights, she picked the MRTI Act for her mini-dissertation and knows the fine print by now.
But she was shown an officious circular mentioning costs in multiples of Rs 50 and didn’t probe further.
She did, however, mention the mysterious circular to veteran activist Shailesh Gandhi. Typically, he filed an application demanding to see it.
‘‘If such a circular exists, is is an assault on the citizen’s fundamental rights and a subversion of the MRTI Act and its spirit,’’ his application reasoned.
What emerged—at Rs 2.50 a page—were the revised rates for issuing Development Plan remarks or sale of Development Plan forms that nowhere mentioned information sought under the MRTI Act.
‘‘The circular had said all Development Plan staff are to charge this rate, I misunderstood it,’’ Manohar justifies.
But activists say overcharging has perilous outcomes.
‘‘It’s a deliberate attempt to scuttle provisions of the Act,’’ says Kewal Semlani, coordinator of Mahadhikar, a citizens’ initiative promoting the right to information. Naturally, when information—itself often fuzzy in the details—comes with a de luxe price tag, the average citizen stops seeking it.
Manohar himself says too many applicants are seeking ‘‘voluminous and sometimes stupid’’ information, a trend that can easily be nipped, he opines, if the cost of information was to be ‘‘revised’’.
Sharad Bansal, joint secretary of the Bhuleshwar Residents Association, was quoted the incredible Rs 50 per page by Manohar.
The trader, also a litigant in a plea against illegal gold smithy units in Bhuleshwar, sought information on what action had been taken against the illegal units.
The information was 15 pages. Rs 50 per page. Bansal never went back.
kavithaiyer@expressindia.com