Pune: City-based Right to Information (RTI) activists have condemned the launch of a coffee table book on ‘successful RTI stories’ by the Central Information Commission (CIC), calling it a wasteful expenditure and demanding that the Prime Minister take action.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, noted RTI activists from Pune, Vijay Kumbhar and Major General S.C.N. Jatar (retired), have alleged that the CIC squandered Rs. 17 lakh to bring out the coffee table book.
They accordingly demanded the PMO to recover the amount from the CIC authorities who sanctioned the amount.
The 124-page book was launched at the CIC’s annual convention in New Delhi on November 7-8, in presence of the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
The activists also questioned the wisdom behind the extravagant expenditure on the book, whose soft copy was published on the CIC website the same day, as only six copies of the book were ready at the time of unveiling, and could not be distributed among information commissioners and others present at the function.
According to Mr. Kumbhar, over 800 copies of the book are now being sent to the CIC by the Yashavantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA), Pune.
“As per figures obtained from sources, logistics of sending these copies to dignitaries in Delhi will add another Rs. 4 lakh to this project cost. We don’t even know whether these printed copies will be sent at all,” Mr. Kumbhar said.
Maj. Gen. Jatar remarked that while the stories documented in the coffee-table book were inspirational, there were already reproduced in journals.
“Our question is that whether the CIC is justified in its lavish spending to produce this compilation. Is it only polish up the Chief Information Commissioner’s image? We detect something fishy and demand the PMO to recover the money from the CIC at once,” he said.
