Mumbai: Citizens have flooded the Maharashtra Lokayukta with 13,477 complaints in the last two years, but only 1.17% of them have been forwarded to the the State government for action, an RTI query has revealed.
Of the 158 complaints forwarded for action, the government has not acted on a single complaint so far. The figures are for the period of January 2015 to May 2017.
The Lokayukta office said the data may be correct, but has not been “presented properly” by RTI activist Jeetendra Ghadge, who obtained the information this month. State Upa Lokayukta Shailesh Kumar Sharma told The Hindu , “This (clearing of a complaint) is a complicated process. We have disposed of a huge chunk of complaints on our own. The rest are forwarded to the State for action. But if the State does not respond, we forward a recommendation to the Governor. This is then presented in the Assembly for deliberations.”
As per the RTI reply, as many as 642 special reports were sent to the Governor, but to no avail. When asked by Mr. Ghadge if any disciplinary action has been taken against government officials, the government replied in the negative. “This is mainly because the Lokayukta orders are not binding on the government,” Mr. Ghadge said.
