Corporators target ‘professional complainants’

[ganpat1956]

Mumbai, August 08: Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak’s circular for ward officers has drawn strong opposition when it was brought for approval during the Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday.

The circular states that constant complaints coming from the same individuals—citizens whom corporators refer to as ‘professional complainants—-should be solved at the ward level and not sent to the head office.

It also mentions the name of Madhav Deshpande, founder of the Forum of Justice, who has lodged complaints related to illegal constructions in several wards.

However, corporators were of the opinion that such complaints should not be entertained at all. They said such people were in fact running organisations which dug out information on illegal constructions though RTI and then filed complaints, following which the BMC was forced to send notices to the persons concerned.

After receiving the notice, when the ‘victim’ approaches the complainant, he would be demanded money to withdraw the complaint, they added.

“That’s how it works, and each ward has such complainants who need to be identified and prevented from dislodging the system,” said Congress Corporator Samir Desai.

Backing his statement, Prabhakar Shinde said that a list which mentions such people should be circulated to ward officers to keep them at bay and the vigilance cell on alert.

However, Additional Commissioner Srikanth Singh said that they are aware of such people and vigilance is kept on them at ward level.

“However, we cannot single out individuals and every complaint coming to our central vigilance centre needs to be looked at,” he added.

Chairman Ravindra Waikar, however, requested complaints to be put up on the SAP system and to exclude names of individuals from the circular before passing it.

Corporators target ‘professional complainants’

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[karira]

Sponsorer

However, corporators were of the opinion that such complaints should not be entertained at all. They said such people were in fact running organisations which dug out information on illegal constructions though RTI and then filed complaints, following which the BMC was forced to send notices to the persons concerned.

This is real funny.
In fact, the corporators and officers should be happy that someone is doing the work for them.
Is it not BMC's job to send notices to people who have illegal constructions ? Why do they think someone is forcing them to send notices ?
Just goes to show how scared are politicians and officers about the RTI act.

[abhijeet]

I had one information regarding Kolkata Municipal Corporation. one applicant wanted to know how many building plans were sanctioned in their locality and how many building plans are yet to be sanctioned after submission . Information provided was the procedure of the sanctioning of building plans only . Not a single information out of three queries was furnished, After appeal the applicant has received information regarding above mentioned two queries as follow .. not readily available. This information was furnished 'only after four months" . But State Chief Commissioner's activityus not at all encouraging as it is learnt from some other persons---- What is the solution, where all the SPIO s are busy to serve the purpoe of the corrupt officers/ persons ?
Abhijeet

[kdeva]

People of common interests should unite and file similar RTI applications in enmasse. This will solve the problem of threatening politicians and bureaucrats.