Right to Information (RTI) activist Disparsing Rani is planning to write to the Chief Information Commissioner to complain about the inordinate delays in responses to his requests for information from the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Ltd (MeECL) and Shillong Municipal Board (SMB).
Rani has been on a self-appointed mission to inquire into pending vacancies in government bodies. His RTI requests have revealed hundreds of vacancies across the state in all manner of departments. However, more than two months on, the MeECL and SMB have yet to get back to him.
Speaking to the media today, Rani informed that he had filed an RTI request on April 1 but has received no response from either party.
“If the response keeps on pending, then it will be time to lodge a complaint with the CIC, as per RTI procedures,” he said.
Meanwhile, one of his requests revolves around the procedure to obtain electricity connections for the residents of Them Ïewmawlong. If, as the residents claim, the land on which they live was given to the community of Dalit Sikhs in 1853 by the Syiem of Mylliem, there should be records of this.
Instead, Rani believes that the Syiem of Mylliem remained in authority over the land in question, as per an agreement signed in 1954.
The residents of Them Ïewmawlong are in a protracted dispute with the state government about relocating to another area of the city.
