NEW DELHI, July 29: The big SUV car was packed only to carry the documents he received as reply to his query under the Right to Information Act, for the reply ran into huge 40,000 pages.
Luckily for the answer-seeker, Dharmendra Shukla of Indore in Madhya Pradesh, he was spared of shelling out Rs 80,000 for the documents as required to pay at the rate of Rs two per page under the act since his plea was not answered within the stipulated one month. But the concerned official has received a notice for causing a loss of Rs 80,000 to the state exchequer for delaying the reply.
“I had submitted an RTI plea with the Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) of Indore seeking details of tenders and bill payments connected to procurement of medicines, equipment and allied materials during the COVID-19 pandemic period,” Shukla said on Saturday.
After he was not provided the information within one month, he approached the first appellate officer Dr Sharad Gupta, who accepted the plea and directed that he be given the information free of cost, Shukla added. “I took my SUV to bring back the documents and the entire vehicle got packed. Only the driver’s seat remained free,” he said.
The appellate officer Dr Gupta, who is the Regional Joint Director of the state health department, agreed that he had ordered the information be given free of cost. But said he had directed the CMHO to take appropriate action against the personnel due to whom the state exchequer lost ₹ 80,000 since the information was not given in time.
(Manas Dasgupta)
