One box file upon another, one tender document after another and a sea
of challans, some yellowed and crumpled. The scene is from the 10X10
store room created in quick time by the PCMC medical department at its
Yeshwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital to stack up information sought by
an applicant under the Right to Information Act. It will require no
less than a tempo or a truck to cart away as many as 56,000 pages of
information.
However, applicant Vilas Medigiri is unlikely to do so as the PCMC
medical department has asked him to pay Rs 1.12 lakh. "We will have to
give applicant the xerox copies of the original document. Each copy
costs Rs 2. So the amount comes to Rs 1.12 lakh," PCMC medical officer
Dr Nagkumar Kunachgi said.
Medigiri, 40, a businessman from Indrayani Nagar area, had sought
information about purchases made, medicine manufacturing dates, expiry
dates, batch numbers, tenders allotted, medicine distributed, landline
numbers and cellphone numbers of medicine suppliers and other related
details from the department and the information pertained to 12 years.
PCMC officials said nine staffers had spent 20 days to collect the
information. "Our other works suffered as we had to put in our might
to collect this information. We have made available all original
documents," stores officer Suhas Kakade said.
Shocked at the huge "medical information bill", Medigiri said he would
not pay the amount as he felt the PCMC was trying to mislead him. "I
had sought information under RTI in my name only after the PCMC
refused to provide information to my wife, Varsha, who is a
corporator. Over the years, we have written at least 500 letters to
the PCMC seeking various information. The PCMC has not responded to
them. And how can they charge a corporator who is seeking
information?"
Kakade said they had levied charges on the corporator as well as per
the norms set by the standing committee. "We have the minutes of the
standing committee with us. The issue of corporator Varsha Medigiri
seeking information was raised at the standing committee meeting. The
commissioner had ruled that such information should be charged."
Medigiri said he would take the matter to the State Information
Commissioner. "If the information commissioner says the PCMC was right
in charging me, then only will I pay up."
Kunachgi said they too would approach the information commissioner for
guidance. The store room, meanwhile, draws people who want to have a
look at the piles of information.
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