Mumbai: In an unanticipated response to a Right to Information (RTI) software on an information searching for permissions for making a eating institution in Andheri, the trustee of city-based NGO, Watchdog Foundation, Godfrey Pimenta was notified by the BMC’s construction proposition (BP) division that the paperwork is‘missing’
The NGO has really at the moment raked up the enduring concern of information supposedly going lacking out on inexplicably from the BMC workplaces, considerably hindering openness and legal responsibility throughout the public physique’s divisions.
On January 15, Pimenta contacted the office of Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, highlighting the federal authorities’s failing to penetrate proper into the difficulty of lacking out on information and declared abnormalities.
In his letter to the Chief Minister’s Office, Pimenta created, “It is shocking that despite explicit directions from the erstwhile CM, Eknath Shinde, to agencies concerned to probe serious allegations regarding nearly 3,000 missing files from the BP department, there appears to be no substantive progress.”
On a part of the Industrial Premises Cooperative Society, Pimenta had really submitted an RTI to accumulate authorised methods of Shakuntala Restaurant, located at Nand Dham Industrial Estate, Marol,Andheri East However, the RTI response dated January 2, 2024 by the Public Information Officer, BP (Western Suburbs I) said that “The File No. GBII/9988/A is not available in this office record (missing file). We regret that the desired information cannot be furnished to you.”
Speaking to the FPJ, Pimenta said, “The restaurant came up before 2013. However, there are recent complaints of it encroaching mandatory open spaces. I was astonished to get a reply that the file is missing.”
“The information requested under the RTI pertains to the period before 2013 when a major scam emerged about missing files from the BMC’s BP department. The BMC had the opportunity to reconstruct all missing files by gathering information from property owners, the property tax department, the license department, and the fire brigade. However, the lack of willpower within the BMC has hindered the reconstruction of its own records,” Pimenta said.
“This is not an isolated case. It is a recurring pattern, especially concerning illegal constructions, particularly commercial structures. This indicates a systemic failure and, more disturbingly, a deliberate attempt to shield illegal activities and corruption within the department,” he said.
In 2013, a minimal of three,747 information went lacking out on from the BMC’s BP division. In 2017, the agency declared to have really mapped or recreated nearly all of the information that went lacking out on inexplicably.
Mumbai BJP head of state, MLA Ashish Shelar had really apparently required cops exercise proper into the priority and urged that 7,000 information had really gone lacking out on from the division. The FPJ tried getting in contact with Shelar in search of his talk about the BMC’s lacking out on information concern, but he cannot be gotten to.
An aged policeman from the BP division said, “Since 2015, all documents have been uploaded online. Everything is digitised and there is no question of files missing.” The policeman, however, said he was not educated in regards to the improve on mapping lacking out on information because it was an outdated concern.
