Resident nails P’kula MC lie in RTI reply

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, September 3

Even as the Panchkula Municipal Corporation admitted at its House meeting that around 70 safai karamcharis were working in the houses of the top brass of the city, information sought by a resident under the Right to Information (RTI) Act around 10 months ago revealed that there was no such deployment of the sanitation staff, raising questions over the authenticity of the information supplied.

“Not even a single person has been deployed in houses of the top brass,” the MC said in its reply to the RTI query. A copy of the reply is available with Chandigarh Tribune. The RTI plea was filed by Rakesh Aggarwal, a resident of Sector 12, on November 28, 2014.

“I had asked them how many safai karamcharis have been deputed in houses of officers, and I was told that there was none. However, at the House meeting on Tuesday, they came out with a list of safai karamcharis working in houses of the top brass of the city and said they would now withdraw them. This means that they supplied wrong information to me,” said Rakesh Aggarwal.

He said, “Action should be taken against the public Information officer for supplying wrong information to me.” The Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation, Jagdeep Dhanda, said, “Under the RTI Act, a person can file an appeal or submit a complaint if wrong information is supplied to him and the Commissioner has the power to impose a penalty.”

Aggarwal said the deployment of safai karamcharis in houses of officers and politicians for years had caused a loss of lakhs of rupees to the civic body and the money should be recovered from the officers.

On Tuesday, councillors had questioned the deployment of 70 safai karamcharis, who remained “absent” from their area of work, at the houses of officers, judges, politicians and the top brass of the city. After the issue was brought to the notice of the MC House, MC Commissioner Jagdeep Dhanda had ordered to withdraw them from the houses.

There are 620 safai karamcharis, who cater to a population of over five lakh in the the district, including Pinjore, Kalka, Barwala and Raipur Rani. Councillors alleged that 250 of them had stopped reporting for duty for the past several months while some others were working at the houses of the top brass of the city.