First there were the VIPs. Then came the VVIPs. Now a new category called “semi-VVIPs” has emerged, courtesy the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
The coinage came to light recently when a Right to Information applicant filed an appeal before the Central Information Commission (CIC) seeking full information on the construction of a block of three “semi-VVIP” pyres at the Nigambodh Ghat cremation grounds. The CIC allowed the appeal on Thursday.
The appellant, Subhash Chandra Agrawal, filed an RTI application with the MCD on October 24, 2009.
He sought “detailed and complete information,” including “documents, file notings and correspondence,” pertaining to procedures and criteria followed for VVIP cremations.
‘Redevelopment plan’
Though Mr. Agrawal filed 13 questions, he was particularly agitated by a block of three segregated “semi-VVIP” pyres that had sprung up under the MCD’s recent “redevelopment plan.” That the new pyres were a response to Delhi’s growing club of VVIPs was obvious enough. Yet this was class discrimination in death, and so Mr. Agrawal shot off his questions: What prompted the corporation to develop these fenced-off pyres? And what criteria decided who qualified to be called “semi-VVIPs”?
Ashok K. Rawat, Principal Information Officer of the MCD’s health department, was clearly not amused by the queries.
He refused to explain why the special pyres had come up, noting that these were allotted “subject to availability” or on the orders of the MCD headquarters. He added that the MCD had not circulated any criteria for the use of the “semi-VVIP” pyres.
After Mr. Agrawal’s appeal to the Municipal Health Officer and first appellate authority N.K. Yadav got him nowhere, he approached the CIC.
Shailesh Gandhi, Central Information Commissioner, reprimanded Mr. Yadav for not acting on the first appeal and directed the MCD to furnish the information Mr. Agrawal sought by March 5, 2010.
Mr. Agrawal told The Hindu that his interest in filing the application was to ensure that the MCD dismantled the iron railings around the “semi-VVIP pyres.” “The railings suggest that status is an issue even in death.”
