Times of India
NEW DELHI: This is the first Assembly election in Delhi where the opposition seems to be making full use of the RTI Act to catch the government on th
e wrong foot. During the 2003 elections, RTI was still a relatively new concept and parties had not quite realized its potential as a weapon in a democracy.
Delhi BJP started its own RTI unit three months ago after some of its leaders started feeling that the city government was spending too much public money for an “image makeover” by issuing frequent and irrelevant advertisements. The unit has since unearthed information about how the government spent over Rs 45 crore in advertisements during 2007-08 and 2008-09 financial years, apart from nailing the government in numerous other issues.
What is all the more surprising is that the replies obtained under the RTI showed that out of Rs 7.87 crore spent on advertisements in 2007-08, approximately Rs 4.9 crore was non-planned expenditure, said a senior BJP leader.
Armed with information obtained using RTI, the party’s chief ministerial nominee Vijay Kumar Malhotra has attacked the government over the fact that only 1,716 people have been given a state government job in the 10 years of its rule. “Currently, nine district employment offices, two special employment offices for the handicapped, one special employment office for ex-servicemen and three university employment information and guidance bureaus are functioning. But the government has only been able those few jobs,” said an official release issued by his office.
The cell has also obtained “valuable” information about the Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojna under which the state government was supposed to provide houses for the urban poor. “To date they have acquired land only in one village in Poot Khurd in Outer Delhi. The government had promised to create 60,000 houses by September this year. But an RTI reply shows how only 9,436 housing units are coming up,” said a party leader.
BJP state unit president Dr Harshvardhan said, “We started the cell with an idea to find out information from government departments. It was a constructive step taken to create a healthy public opinion. We are not looking at this initiative for political purpose only.”
RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal said, “The opposition plays a very important role in democracy. Earlier the opposition used to take up non-issues because they had no information about the developmental aspects. Opposition parties should put the information collected through RTI in public domain. Rather than talking about caste and religion, parties should focus on how money has been by the government and what has happened to the developments.”
