Punjab’s usually reticent bureaucracy, well-known for its almost legendary reluctance in parting with official records under the Right to Information Act, has turned curiously forthcoming on handing out details pertaining to the recently ousted finance minister Manpreet Badal’s days in the secretariat.
Believe it or not, but the state transport commissioner’s office took less than a day to come up with details of the Akali rebel’s official transport expenses over 13 years since the day he was first elected member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly in 1998.
The efficient but evidently overzealous information officer also gave out details of the security deployed to protect the former minister and his family members — information that the applicant, Chandigarh-based Dinesh Kumar had not even sought.
While the revelations of the huge expenditure on Manpreet Badal’s transport and security seem to belie his repeated assertions on not having used official transport or security guards as a cabinet minister, the lightening quick response of the transport department has surprised every RTI activist in the state.
In fact, similar enthusiasm was evident in the releasing of other “embarrassing” details about how the former finance minister, who has consistently opposed popular farm subsidies like free power, and his family had sought and received agricultural subsidies worth `19 lakhs on account of exporting citrus fruit (kinnow) outside Punjab.
The Punjab RTI Activists’ Federation, whose members have been forced to petition the state information commission and even the High Court to ferret out records on more than one occasion, said PIO’s in the state rarely conform to the mandatory 30-day period provided in the act.
Attributing the bureaucratic eagerness to the ruling Akali Dal-BJP Coalition’s anxiety over the sizeable crowds that Manpreet Badal is drawing in the course of his ongoing Punjab Jagao Yatra, observers said Punjabi politicians may have achieved a first in successfully deploying the RTI (meant to serve as a safeguard for common citizens) against rivals.