'Arnie' RTI applications torment Palike engineers

Star power

Engineers of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike South Division are running for cover, courtesy, strange RTI applications with a portrait of Hollywood action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The “Governator” in the picture is blindfolded with a question mark right on his forehead.
Naresh Kumar, editor of Human Rights Squad, has created panic among the Palike engineers with the image. Like the Terminator’s all blazing guns, Kumar has shot off 445
RTI applications to the Palike in February alone.

Without waiting for response from the engineers, he has flooded H C Ananthaswamy, Chief Engineer of the BBMP Stormwater Drain Division, with another 88 applications. Of them, 44 are related to stormwater, while the rest pertain to solid waste management.

Puzzled Palike engineers are now finding ways to tackle them. “There should be some limit to filing RTI applications. Although these works seem simple, they consume a lot of our precious time. We have better things to do,” an engineer said.

‘Logo of identity’

Kumar defends the Schwarzenegger logo and his flurry of queries. “The logo is my identity. People should identify me by seeing my applications. No rule of the RTI Act prevents anyone from putting the logo on the application,” he said.

Kumar said he had filed the queries under Rule 14 of the RTI Act, which necessitates filing one application for one subject. Asked what his objectives were, he said, “I have filed the applications for better efficiency in the system. Somebody had to fight against the illegalities in the BBMP, which is a hub of corruption. I have not only filed 88 RTI applications in one department, but also 445 applications in the BBMP South Division.”

But Kumar knows for sure his applications cannot change the functioning of the BBMP.
It is learnt that Kumar had filed 20 RTI applications in the office of the Superintendent of Police, Bangalore Rural District. They too seemed to be quite puzzled.