यह पत्र प्रदीप प्रधान ने अरविन्द केजरीवाल को दिनांक २८ नवम्बर २००९ को लिखा था। वैसे बताने वाले बताते हैं कि प्रदीप प्रधान कभी अरविन्द केजरीवाल के करीबी रहे थे। अब यह पत्र आपके समक्ष पेश कर रहा हूँ.....
Final Report on National RTI Awards: A Heap of Garbage- An Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal (13)
Dear Arvind
The opening words of your Final Study Report say, “We had to collect all the orders passed by 28 Information Commissions in the country. While some orders were on their websites, for many commissions, we had to file RTI applications and sometimes make multiple trips to collect their orders”. (http://www.rtiawards.org/final_rti_study_report.html). So we thought, you must have meanwhile made amends to the skewed total in respect of orders passed by the concerned Commissions or Commissioners, based upon which you had released your interim percentages and rankings. You have also admitted on the above website, “Many people also pointed out specific mistakes in our analysis, which we have corrected before preparing this final report. We are particularly grateful to C J Karira from Andhra Pradesh and Pradeep Pradhan from Orissa for pointing out specific mistakes”. But are you true to your words? We say, not at all, and that too, despite our repeated reminder to you in this regard (Vide- Open Letter No.6 - Sanitize your data sheets first), to which you never cared to respond. Now we are sure, your gesture of ‘thanks giving’ is more a public relations exercise to save yourself than a genuine admission of inherent flaws in your survey accompanied by necessary correction in appropriate places.
To understand what we say, please glance at your State Fact Sheet for Orissa (http://www.rtiawards.org/images/statelist_pdfs/orissa.pdf), where you say, ‘the total number of cases analysed by us (as provided to us)- 643’ . And a little later on the said page, you have also admitted, “The Commission provided us with copies of all their orders in a CD”. It seems, you have not consulted the Commission’s website (http://orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/Quaterly%20decision.html), where the total number of orders for the year is a larger figure i.e. 672. It is not a matter of difference of 29 orders only that we are so much concerned with, but certainly with the larger question, i.e. what prevented you from relying on a public domain like Commission’s website, and made you instead cling to whatever data they offered to you privately on a CD?’. Even after getting the Data CD from the Commission, you could have very well cross-checked its authenticity against the data displayed on the Commission’s website. But you didn’t care to do that. And that too again, despite our abovementioned Open Letter wherein we had illustrated with specific instances how the concerned Commissioners had cooked up for you penalty cases out of non-penalty orders. In the State Fact Sheet for Orissa (
http://www.rtiawards.org/images/statelist_pdfs/orissa.pdf), while dealing with deterrent impact, you have awarded 29.33% along with Rank-1 to Orissa Information Commission in the whole country. It seems, come what may, and be the figures supplied privately to you genuine or concocted, you are pre-determined to award 1st Rank to Orissa Information Commission, whose bleak records are best known to the RTI appellants/ complainants/activists of Orissa?
Just look! In your myopic enthusiasm for Orissa Information Commission, what a nauseating mess of stinking garbage you seemed to have embellished as your so-called Final Report! Just go to your page on ‘Disposal & Pendencies’ (http://www.rtiawards.org/disposals_pendencies.html) where you have presented in two separate columns Commissioner-wise and Commission-wise numbers of orders passed in 2008 and pendency as on 31st Dec. 2008. In the right column, you have mentioned the total number of orders passed by the Orissa Commission as 643, which is no doubt consistent with the total figure of analysed cases given in Orissa Fact Sheet. Now, look at the left column (Commissioner-wise) of the same page, where you have separately mentioned the numbers of orders passed inter alia by 3 Commissioners of Orissa (D.N.Padhi- 508, Jagadanand-192 and Radhamohan- 28) and simply add them up. It comes to a whopping 728! Far in excess of your 643 (exact difference being 85)! And, also in excess of the actual total i.e. 672 as per the website (exact difference being 56). Does your left hand tally with your right hand? Your quick-fix figure-works smack of the same quixotic Forest Officer of our State, who once in his over-enthusiasm to present a bright picture of plantation programme in the State showed more land area covered by the said programme than the total territory available to Orissa.
Apart from the mismatch between the two aggregates (left and right), which is certainly mind-boggling, the very intention of yours behind executing such a statistical jugglery smells foul against the RTI mantra i.e. transparency and authenticity. As any one can see for himself, you have showered extra favours individually to both DN Padhi and Jagadanand by arbitrarily allotting them exaggerated numbers 508 and 192 in respect of orders passed, in place of your own total figures 423 and 107 respectively as quoted in Orissa Fact Sheet (http://www.rtiawards.org/images/statelist_pdfs/orissa.pdf). The only non-beneficiary of your master manipulation seems to be a poor, retired Radhamohan, whose number 28 remains in tact in either place. What a buffoon you are! Or else, it appears to us, you in an avowed hurry to crown the award-maniac two Commissioners of Orissa, with whom you seem to have forged an under-the-table nexus, have deliberately bloated their figures of disposal and projected thereby an over-glorified performer’s image for each of them. Like the proverbial saying ‘Cat is out of bag’, you, however, by this act of foolhardiness made yourself as scandalous as the Orissa Commissioners themselves.
While we have a lot to say on the spurious methodology of your so-called National RTI Awards Survey, we like to wind up this open letter with another poser, and that too relating to Orissa again. You have mentioned, “Three of the parameters i.e. Pro-disclosure factor, Deterrent Impact and Disposals are straight from analysis and do not depend upon feedback. The other two parameters i.e. Overall Public Satisfaction and Effectiveness depend upon public feedback” (http://www.rtiawards.org/final_rti_study_report.html). In the State Fact Sheet for Orissa (http://www.rtiawards.org/images/statelist_pdfs/orissa.pdf), you have awarded to Orissa Commission 30 to 40 % on account of Overall Public Satisfaction, saying, “So, if 100 people approach Orissa Information Commission, pro-disclosure orders were given in 547 cases. Out of these, 30 to 40% people finally got information”. And on account of ‘Effectiveness’ you have awarded 40 to 50% to Chief Commissioner Mr.D.N.Padhi, saying, ‘It is slightly more than the national average of 30 to 40% …” . It is presumed that you have arrived at such firm percentages after collating the responses from the appellants/complainants of Orissa. But no where in your Final Report, the State-wise numbers or names of respondents are ever mentioned. In other respects such as Disposal/Pendency or Penalty, you seem to be talking in terms of both numbers and percentages. But, in respect of OPS or Effectiveness, you have been straightaway talking of percentages only. How can you directly talk of percentages sans the route passed through numbers? Anyway, can you make transparent on your website the list of respondents from Orissa, who in response to your mails expressed their ‘Overall Public Satisfaction’ to the extent of 30 to 40% or appreciated Mr.D.N.Padhi’s ‘Effectiveness’ to the extent of 40 to 50%? The reason for asking such information is, as we have told you already in course of an Open Letter, that several of us, who were the appellants/complainants before Orissa Commission in the year 2008 didn’t receive at all any mail from your end regarding the survey. Thus there is very much an anxiety lurking in the RTI circles that the award of percentages and ranks on OPS or Effectiveness to the Commissioners of Orissa’s might be as much of ‘cock and bull’ type as some other fictitious stuff of yours as mentioned above.
Looking forward to your kind response
With regards
Pradip Pradhan
