IF THE Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissions a high-profile international consultant to work out a report outlining internal reforms and a five-year vision for the 1.1 lakh-strong BMC, then isn’t the citizen entitled to see what comes of it?
Apparently not, the Right to Information (RTI) Act notwithstanding.
Invoking RTI on February 17, businessman Rajkumar Sharma asked the BMC for the report drawn up by McKinsey which had been commissioned and given a year-long brief in November 2004 for a price of Rs 10 crore. However, when it came to telling citizens what the consultant suggested in the report, the BMC—it has already paid Rs 8.5 crore to McKinsey—isn’t playing ball.
At the centre of the rejection is the ‘third-party clause’ of the RTI law that Parliament passed last year. And now Mumbaiites are finding the law’s contentious grey area is shutting the door on crucial public information.
In its reply, the BMC has withheld the report, invoking the ‘third party’ clause.
This exclusion clause covers ‘‘commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property that would harm third-party competitive interest’’. But this doesn’t apply if the public information officer (PIO) feels the disclosure is in the public interest.
However, BMC PIO B K Barve told Sharma that in a letter, McKinsey ‘‘raised objection to the disclosure of material thereof submitted by them to any other person’’.
(McKinsey’s) letter adds that disclosing the report ‘‘will potentially have an adverse impact on (its) competitive position... and that the company had copyright in relation to the said material’’.
Further, in this mid-March rejection, the BMC added it would consult its in-house lawyers; he’s yet to get a reply.
Now, Sharma has filed an appeal with the BMC. ‘‘If Rs 10 crore of public money has been paid to a firm to make recommendations to the government, how can they be confidential? And if the BMC has to put in place internal reforms, what is there to hide?’’ he asks angrily.
In a conversation with Newsline, McKinsey maintained not disclosing reports was part of its global client confidentiality clause.
But why does the civic body find itself tied down by the consultant’s internal practices? More importantly, does the Rs 10 crore report belong to the government?
The BMC is still undecided.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Subrat Ratho said: ‘‘In the original terms of reference with McKinsey, there was no confidentiality clause. It’s only when the report was submitted that it was marked proprietary and confidential. We have to examine the issues involved.’’
Reforming the civic body
Since the Rs 8.5-crore McKinsey report was submitted to the BMC in January, senior civic officials haven’t even met once to discuss its recommendations in the executive summary. These include:
* Rationalise the city’s lopsided property tax assessment. Speedily settle property disputes, currently locking about Rs 1,400 crore, through an out-of-court settlement under retired judges
* Increase octroi vigilance at nakas and through flying squads to counter Rs 400-crore octroi evasion. In the long term, replace octroi with user and other taxes to attract economic activity
* Put in place a door-to-door garbage collection system
* Build 30,000 more toilets, especially to service slums
chitrangada.c@expressindia.com