JOIN USComputerised MUDA records riddle with errors
Amused! Don’t be. This is an official record in MUDA. A seniority list of 117 applicants provided to the members of a consumer forum on demand under the Right to Information Act (RTI) carried this blunder.
The list is also riddled with lot of other loopholes like absence of serial numbers and names of relatives. It could only be a tip of the iceberg of faults or errors in the seniority list prepared by the MUDA given the total number of 1.5 lakh applications pending before it till date.
The revelation
It all came to light at the hearing of the public complaints on violation of the Right to Information Act by State Information Commissioner Dr H N Krishna at the Deputy Commissioner’s office here.
G L Nagaraj Urs, secretary of a consumer organisation took up the cudgels to fight for a public cause after a series of complaints of ambiguity and loss of seniority. He applied for information on seniority list of government employees born till 1952 and applied for 30 X 40 site with MUDA under the RTI.
However, the authorities who made him to run pillar to post for proper information for more than 450 days, provided a list of 117 applicants. The 75-year-old applicant pointed before the Commission’s court on Saturday, the serious errors in the list provided by the MUDA.
In his submission before the court, Urs said that the forum had filed for the seniority list on Oct 20, 2009. As per stipulated RTI Act, he should have been information under RTI within 30 days. But, the MUDA provided a 15 page report, including a copy of seniority list after more than 42 days with incomplete information and the list riddled with lot of mistakes. Repeated requests to give explanation on the errors pointed were unheard after which the forum approached the Information Commission.
Finally, the reply from the authorities was there were more than 1.5 lakh applications pending and it required six months to sort out the issue.
In her clarification, MUDA secretary Vidya Kumari said that it was a human error caused during the process of computerisation and the MUDA would rectify the mistake in the coming days. The MUDA which proudly boasts of completing the computerisation and cataloguing of all the applications and other records is in the dock. Irked with the faulty records and poor implementation of RTI Act, Information Commissioner Krishna pulled up officials for the mess and directed them to rectify the mistakes and update him on action taken.
The Commissioner also asked MUDA to pay ` 5000 as compensation to the representative of the forum for making him run to the office for more than a year to provide him the information. MUDA was also directed to provide the complainant another seniority list with the corrected list at the earliest.