Government offices flooded with queries from people under RTI Act – KRIA

Government offices flooded with queries from people under RTI Act

pecial Correspondent

http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/09/stories/2006070916280300.htm

People are demanding information from the officials about works in their surroundings

 

 

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People are approaching NGOs to know how to elicit information Work on project on a hill halted after people find out that soil-testing report went against the builder   MANGALORE: Various public offices, including the Deputy Commissioner’s office, Mangalore City Corporation, zilla panchayat and various departments of the Government, are flooded with queries from people under Right to Information (RTI) Act. People and various resident associations in the Mangalore Corporation area and its peripheral areas are demanding information about works in their surroundings from the officials under the Act. The non-governmental organisations have been receiving queries from people on how to elicit information from the officials on matters pertaining to their localities. Some of them have obtained information from the officials. The RTI, since it was introduced in 2002 and amended in 2005 with some modification, had been getting considerable attention among the people in Mangalore owing to the awareness campaign launched by the State Government. In one particular case, Fidilis Pinto of Surathkal who wanted to know who authorised digging in his lane, found out from the information that neither the Mangalore City Corporation nor any civic body had permitted the road digging but the contractors of some telecom company allegedly dug up the lane. The residents’ association there is now planning to haul up the contractor. In the Mangalore City Corporation, there are hundreds of applications for information on many projects, including those promoted by the builders’ lobby. One of projects, proposed to be built on a prominent hill in the city, had been halted as one of the residents appealed to the Mangalore City Corporation that the soil-testing certificate had gone against the builder. The soil-testing certificate was available with the city corporation and several residents on the hill had objected to the project in the light of the its magnitude based on the information available to them under RTI Act.