An RTI activist who filed a petition to obtain details about income and expenditure of Perakambi Panchayat in Manachanallur Union was shocked to receive 1,700 blank pages after paying `16,080 for 3,216 pages.
K Srinivasan of Perakambi, Manachanallur, filed a query seeking details about the income and expenditure of the panchayat with the Manachanallur Block Development Officer (BDO) S Mallika on May 30. Since there was no reply from the official, he petitioned Collector Jayashree Muralidharan on June 30.
Subsequently, the BDO sent him a letter stating that there were 3,216 pages for the information demanded by him and he required to pay a total fee of `16,080 at the rate of `5 per page.
Srinivasan deposited the fee on July 20 in the panchayat account through Perambalur branch of Canara Bank. He did not receive any reply and approached the Collector again on August 13. Later, he received 2,728 pages out of which, 1,700 pages were blank. Moreover, the information he received on 268 pages did not pertain to the queries he put up.
Srinivasan had sought details of the tender amount for the felling of Black Babul trees (Karuvela maram) around Perakambi Lake and copies of the Measurement book of the local body.
“I paid the total amount as demanded by the office but received information just for 268 pages. The rest were blank,” Srinivasan said. He met the Collector on Monday during the grievance redressal meet and sought action against the officials. Meanwhile, Srinivasan said he would approach the court to seek justice as he had been charged `5 per page although RTI norms pegged the rate of photocopied documents to `2 per page.
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