7,000 & counting: RTI hit as SIC flits between Pune, Amravati

Kumbhar said Jadhav disposes of 10-15 cases per day while Kuvlekar disposed of 25-30 cases a day.

Every month, Pune SIC bench gets around 350 second appeals

The RTI movement in Pune has been dealt a blow by the inability of the Pune division of the State Information Commission (SIC) to clear pending cases. By the end of May, there were 7,045 second appeals to be disposed of by the Pune bench of the Commission that covers Pune, Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur and Ahmednagar.

This number, 7,045, is the highest second appeals pending in any SIC bench in Maharashtra. Amravati SIC bench has the second highest second appeals pending, 5,096, followed by 4,706 of the Brihanmumbai bench. The lowest appeals pending are at Mumbai bench (SIC headquarters) headed by Chief Information Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad an RTI query by the Express reveals.

Officials at Pune bench of SIC cite two major reasons for the pending cases. Raviraj Phalle, deputy secretary, said after Vijay Kuvlekar retired in February 2012 as State Information Commissioner, no one was appointed for the next six months. “After Kuvlekar, M B Shah was appointed SIC. After his tenure ended in December 2013, for the next four months, there was no State Information Commissioner in Pune,” he said.

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Ravindra Jadhav was appointed SIC in April 2014. He had been given additional charge of Pune bench as he was serving as SIC of Amravati bench. Interestingly, both Pune and Amravati SIC benches have highest pendency of second appeals. Jadhav’s appointment has come under flak from RTI activists in Pune. Vijay Kumbhar of the Surajya Sangharsh Samiti said, “If Jadhav has not been able to dispose of cases faster in Amravati, what was the point in appointing him in Pune where pendency of second appeals is the highest? Now, he has been saddled with over 10,000 pending appeals,” said Kumbhar. “State Information Commissioner of Navi Mumbai would have been the ideal choice since Navi Mumbai is just two-and-a-half-hours from Pune,” says Kumbhar. “State Chief Information Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad, with mimiuma cases pending, should have taken over Pune bench,” added Kumbhar.

Every month, Pune SIC bench gets around 350 second appeals. And officials say the case of Amravati is no different. Pune bench SIC Ravindra Jadhav works for one week in Amravati and another week in Pune. “I have been alternating between Pune and Amravati,” Jadhav said last week.

Kumbhar said Jadhav disposes of 10-15 cases per day while Kuvlekar disposed of 25-30 cases a day. “Obviously, Jadhav is a tired man having to flit between Amravati and Pune. It is not easy to travel 14 hours from Amravati to reach Pune and then go back…I am sure he does not even get a weekly off,” said Kumbhar. Jadhav on other hand said he will soon start working for a fortnight in Pune and another fortnight in Amravati. Jadhav said he disposes of 15-20 cases a day.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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