Responding to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the Telangana High Court on Wednesday sent notice to the state government on confidential Government Orders. According to the petitioner, Sekhar Rao, who is a National Executive Member of the BJP, the TRS government has hidden 42,462 out of the total 1, 04,171 GOs since 2014. These GOs were not uploaded to the website of the state government.
“Basically, the chief minister, K. Chandrashekar Rao, does not respect democracy. The CM has an autocratic tendency because of which he takes such decision. Don’t people have the right to know what the government is spending on? Is the state government scared that if GOs are placed in public domain, people will ask questions?”
As per the research undertaken by the petitioner, only those GOs with less spending are uploaded to the website while many GOs that required releasing of large amounts are hidden.
“The strategy of this government is simple. They have kept 35 per cent of the GOs hidden and by doing so, they have made sure that lakhs of crores of rupees escape scrutiny. They want to make sure that nobody can find out any scams taking place.”
According to RTI activist G. Srinivas Rao, who brought the issue to light, the departments with least accountability are Home and General Administration. In Home Department, out of the total 7,945 GOs issued since June 2014, 5,371 GOs have been kept confidential. In the General Administration, around 60 per cent of the GOs have not been uploaded to the website. In Roads and Buildings department, around 65 per cent of the GOs have been kept hidden.
“As an RTI activist, all I can say is that this government does not want to encourage RTI applications. If there is no GO on the website, how can we even apply an RTI? This is anti-constitutional and the Telangana government should immediately upload all GOs,” said Rao.
Rao said that he has been working on the issue for three years. He could arrive at the exact number of hidden GOs by observing the serial numbers of all GOs issued by a particular department and the actual number of GOs present on the website. He said that he had applied RTI for some GOs and was surprised to find out that they were not on the website.
“Most of the GOs are related to some kind of violations, tendering process and commissions. That's what I observed when I went through some of the hidden GOs,” he said.
