Even as Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and the State government continue to claim that they have nothing to hide on the controversial steel flyover project in the city and are completely transparent about it, the development authority has turned down multiple RTI Act queries in connection with the project.
The reason cited by the BDA: “Giving out this information is not suitable since multiple organisations have approached the courts to scrap the project. The information sought pertains to the working of the State and its interests.” The BDA reiterated its stand during the hearing on an appeal last week.
An RTI query by Priya Narayan on November 14, 2016 only sought details of public consultations the authority made over the project — details of the advertisements placed, the email id given out, and details of people and experts consulted over the project’s implementation. “We fail to understand how giving out details of public consultation is against the State’s interests,” said Srinivas Alavilli of Citizens for Bengaluru, which is opposing the project, on Saturday.
Tara Krishnaswamy, another volunteer of the CFB, said it was a travesty that the BDA is fighting legal battle to implement a project so vociferously opposed by the public, using tax payers’ money. “On top of that, the BDA turns around and says it cannot share information since it is against the State’s interests in the court. This shows the State government hasn’t been truly open about the project,” she said.
BDA Commissioner Rajkumar Khatri said the authority had replied to queries within the limitations of the RTI Act, 2005. “We have uploaded everything we have [on the project] on our website. We cannot reveal information pertaining to business interests,” he said.
