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| 9 years since its inception, Govt officers still unaware of J&K RTI Act 2009 | | ACR Budgam denies information | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, Mar 30: Blame it on the lack of awareness on part of the Government agencies and lukewarm attitude of State Information Commission (SIC), the Government officers particularly the PIOs are not taking this serious and thus ultimate sufferers are the poor citizens of this state.
Details available with Early Times reveal that an application under J&K RTI Act 2009 was filed before Public Information Officer (PIO) / ACR Budgam who is also Collector Land Acquisition (LA) Budgam on 21.02.2017. Application was filed by Ghulam Ali Darzi and Ghulam Qadir Rather both residents of Budgam district and aggrieved farmers affected by Semi Ring Road land acquisition. The information seekers wanted copies of notifications, communication between Collector LA Budgam and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and other documents related to Land Acquisition for proposed Ring Road.
RTI applicants allege that 300 families are affected by this road and thus they were in urgent need of these documents as according to them land is being forcibly acquired by Government and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
"The documents related to this land acquisition should have been made available proactively under section 4 (1) (b) of J&K RTI Act 2009 but this was not done. J&K Land Acquisition Act also directs the authorities to make these documents public, but the officers hardly care and take poor farmers for granted and that is the reason we tried to use RTI Act but have failed to get the information " Ghulam Ali added.
"We invoked Life & Liberty clause of J&K RTI Act 2009 as this is a very serious issue, but now 30 days have elapsed and we haven't been provided the information / documents" said Ghulam Qadir Rather another information seeker and affected farmer.
"Even if the information does not come under Life & Liberty clause still the same was to be provided as expeditiously as possible (see section 7 of J&K RTI Act 2009) as the information was neither to be created or to be obtained from some other Public Authority" said Sarat Dubey another affected farmer and a social activist from Jammu.
After 29 days ie on 20.3.2018 information seekers got a letter from ACR Budgam dated 3.3.2018saying he is not the designated Public Information Officer (PIO), but at the same time he didn't mention who was the PIO. "The ACR Budgam is in possession of this information (Documents pertaining to proposed Land Acquisition for Semi Ring Road in Budgam) but he is not ready to give us the same inspite of the fact that we are the major stakeholders of the proposed Land Acquisition. We are asking for our own documents and these are also not being provided to us " said Farooq Ahmad of Narbal another affected farmer. Sources say that aggrieved farmers have now filed a complaint against ACR before State Information Commission (SIC) and the matter will be listed next week for hearing. |
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