The citizens of India have the right to seek information from the Government under Right to Information Act 2005. It does work wonders. Since we pay taxes to the Government in any form and the public servants are paid from our taxes, we have the right to seek information and they are duty bound to reply to our requests. But overtime the public information officers have developed methods to harass the information seekers and if they cannot handle them they even get rid of them as it has happened in various parts of the country with the whistleblowers.
The Panchayat in North Goa has demanded from the owners one hundred thousand rupees to issue Occupancy for a residential building and when the demand was turned down since the owner had all the papers in order, the Panchayat resorted to harassment. First they sent a letter asking for revised plans. The owner co0mplained to Block Development Officer and at the same time sent an RTI application to the Panchayat Public Information Officer, who in this case is also the Panchayat Secretary. He in his infinite wisdom found another way to harass the applicant. A letter was sent the same day to the Town and Country Planning Officer asking him to have a joint inspection of the building premises when the same department official has carried out an inspection and given a Completion Order. The Panchayat Secretary to the Sarpanch blindly follows whatever is dictated to him by the Sarpanch and members of the ruling panel and has no independent view of his own.
The owner had asked some difficult questions in the RTI Application which the Secretary and the Panchayat could not answer and the only way they found is to send a request to TCP for another inspection. What the TCP now does is a million dollar question.
Calisto J. de Souza, Alto Porvorim
