RTI pleas not eliciting any reply, activists tell mayor

Coimbatore: A section of activists on Tuesday petitioned city mayor Kalpana Anandakumar against the public information officers and the appellate authority of the corporation for not sharing information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
After petitioning the mayor at the weekly grievance day meeting at the main corporation building, activist S P Thiagarajan told the media that some petitions were kept pending for months together, while some hadn’t elicited any response for more than a year.
Pointing out that assistant corporation commissioners, executive engineers, city health officer, accounts officers, law officer and council secretary were some of the officials designated as the public information officers, he said they were supposed to provide details sought under the RTI Act within 30 days of receipt of an application.
“If the information sought under the Act cannot be shared, it can be rejected by citing relevant sections. But petitions are kept on hold indefinitely. Deputy corporation commissioner is the designated appellate authority. When the public information officers fail to share the information, the appellate authority is duty-bound to share the same within 45 days, when an appeal is raised with the authority,” he said.
He said they had brought some of the irregularities in the city corporation to the public domain with the help of the RTI Act. “Refusing to share information or not letting us access the files under section 2(j) of the RTI Act is an attempt to hide things.”
The activist said he was confident that the mayor would take appropriate steps to address their grievance.
Activists P V Gopal, Sajeev Rangasamy and M Suresh were present.