When confronted with alarming figures pertaining to deaths of 227 conservancy staff in 30 months as revealed by The Indian Express in October, the PMC had gone into a denial mode. The civic administration had claimed at the time that 159 class IV employees had died in 24 months and of this only 108 were conservancy staff.

On October 17, The Indian Express filed an RTI application seeking information related to conservancy staff in PMC and the number and cause of deaths in specific years so as to put an end to this debate. As per the RTI Act, the PMC had to furnish the information within 30 days of filing of application.

However, a good two-and-a-half months have passed since then but the PMC has failed to furnish the information sought under RTI. It is not as if the information sought required much compiling and data sifting.

On November 15, just before the deadline to furnish the information, the PMC Public Information Officer (PIO), wrote to Express stating the civic administration would give its reply in the next few days.

“The information is very vast and related to various department of the PMC. The compilation of data is going on and we will furnish it soon,” PIO Sanjay More said.

Some six weeks have passed since then but the civic administration seems to be still compiling the requisite information.

Meanwhile, some PMC officers orally communicated that the sought information was available in 15,000 pages and the applicant has to pay Rs 30,000, at the rate of Rs two per copy as per the RTI rule, to collect the information. However, they refused to give in writing that the RTI applicant needed to pay Rs 30,000 to be provided some basic information.