RTI war between Badals drags on

And the RTI battle is still on. The Department of Transport Commissioner,Punjab,which had set a record of sorts by providing information on 13 years of Badal’s fuel expenses from 1998 to October 2010 within a day,first wrote back to Badal to pay Rs 18100 for 9050 pages of vouchers pertaining to fuel expenses of those mentioned.

But Badal wrote back stating that the number of pages and fee thereon has surprised him and persisited for compiled figures,warning to take the matter to the state information commission. And he was once again outwitted. This time he has been furnished one-page information which cites a figure of Rs 41 crore as fuel expenses sans names or designations since 2007 when the alliance came to power. What’s more,it includes even fuel expenses of all the MLAs,which Badal had not asked for.

Notably,RTI information provided by the same department to Chandigarh resident Dinesh Kumar on Manpreet had no vouchers,just four pages chronicling kilometres logged from 1998 by each of Badal’s four vehicles — a Tata Sumo,a Toyota Qualis,a Toyota Camry and a gypsy – with corresponding fuel expenses.

State Transport Commissioner Hussan Lal says Manpreet had written to them that he does not need bills and vouchers but complied figures of their expenses in one or two pages. “Now,the information has been provided to him in concise form,” he said.

But according to Manpreet,the figure of Rs 1.78 crore given by the government included allowances,cars,security and the only travel reimbursement he sought as finance minister to attend the funeral of CP(M patriarch Jyoti Basu in Kolkata in 2010. “All I wanted to know through RTI was how this compares with figures of other ministers. I have now decided to pay the transport department Rs 18,100 to get the complete information running into 9,000 pages,” says Manpreet.

The information may come handy during the polls slated early next year. Just the “flying” expenses of the CM and deputy CM provided by the Cvil Aviation department is Rs 34 crore. This includes chartered planes and choppers and rent of state chopper Dauphin N-31,which entails fixed monthly charge of Rs 64,44,000 and costs the state Rs 84,000 per hour.

On his other query – securitymen on duty of the CM,deputy CM and ministers — he has been told by the office of DGP that through a government notification of February 2006,the security wing was brought out of the purview of the RTI Act. In November last year,details of native guards at Manpreet’s official residence in Chandigarh,Badal’s village,escort vehicle and personal security officers (PSOs) on duty from 2007 to 2010 was provided without any RTI query. It had also revealed that the number of securitymen with Manpreet went up from 20 in 2007 to 24 in 2010.

“They have denied me information on securitymen deployed citing 2007 notification. Then,how was information about my so-called security during my stint as cabinet minister provided? This,when I had in written refused to take any security from the state,” says Manpreet.

Former state information commissioner,R K Gupta,says it is clearly a case of mischief by some departments.