A fraud has been detected at the Culture Ministry which allotted a fund of Rs. 2.5 crore for making a film on Tilak, which was never made. Now the Central Information Commission (CIC) has sent a notice to the Ministry. The central information commission M. Sridhar Acharyulu issued a show cause notice to Suman Bara, the chief public information officer of the culture ministry, questioning why maximum penalty should not be imposed on him for not providing the information on the case with the excuse that the file pertaining to it was “missing”.
Culture Ministry officials released the amount to a filmmaker despite him not having made the promised film, and then allowing the file of the project to go “missing”. Moreover, when the issue was brought into public domain by a Right to Information activist, the Central Bureau of Investigation, which had filed a chargesheet in the matter, did not even probe the role of the corrupt officials in the matter.
V.R. Kamalapurkar, the appellant, exposed the fraud through an RTI application after nearly 12 years of its filing. He had sought to know the date of commencement of centenary/commemoration cell for celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Indian republic in or around 2001, budget allocated for the cell, classification and number of programmes undertaken, etc.
The Ministry of Culture gave a contract worth Rs 2.5 crores to Vinay Dhumale to make a movie on Bal GangadharTilak. The money was transferred to Vinay in two installments. However, the movie was never made and there was no enquiry into the utility of the funds. The ministry was able to find out about this embezzlement of money only after the RTI application was filed by the appellant in 2011.
The Commission also noted that the official submitted that “intensive search operations were conducted in the ministry record rooms between 2013 and 2017 but to no avail. Hence, the file has been declared as missing.”
Culture Ministry officials released the amount to a filmmaker despite him not having made the promised film, and then allowing the file of the project to go “missing”. Moreover, when the issue was brought into public domain by a Right to Information activist, the Central Bureau of Investigation, which had filed a chargesheet in the matter, did not even probe the role of the corrupt officials in the matter.
V.R. Kamalapurkar, the appellant, exposed the fraud through an RTI application after nearly 12 years of its filing. He had sought to know the date of commencement of centenary/commemoration cell for celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Indian republic in or around 2001, budget allocated for the cell, classification and number of programmes undertaken, etc.
The Ministry of Culture gave a contract worth Rs 2.5 crores to Vinay Dhumale to make a movie on Bal GangadharTilak. The money was transferred to Vinay in two installments. However, the movie was never made and there was no enquiry into the utility of the funds. The ministry was able to find out about this embezzlement of money only after the RTI application was filed by the appellant in 2011.
The Commission also noted that the official submitted that “intensive search operations were conducted in the ministry record rooms between 2013 and 2017 but to no avail. Hence, the file has been declared as missing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment