Madhya Pradesh: Farmer denied information under RTI, forced to withdraw CM Helpline complaint in Rajpur

Rajpur (Madhya Pradesh): A farmer from Rajpur tehsil of Barwani district has been denied information under Right to Information (RTI) Act from Water Resource Department and even forced him to withdraw his complaint filed under CM Helpline number.

Applicant Chandrashekhar Karil had moved an RTI application seeking information from the executive engineer, Water Resources Department, Barwani in July 2022. He paid Rs 404 as application fee for providing information.

Despite running from pillar to post, he was denied information from the official concerned citing it as vague complaint. The distressed farmer then applied for an application under CM Helpline number for around 8-10 times and even approached the then collector Shivraj Singh Vermaas as well as current district collector Rahul Haridas Fating but to no avail.

He was even forced to withdraw his complaint from the CM helpline number by the concerned official (in-charge of Superintendent Engineer, Khargone). In his complaint, he mentioned that as a tail-end farmer he has been facing canal water scarcity which has become a hindrance in irrigating the standing crops for the last 8 to 9 months. He made a similar complaint to the CM helpline number last year too and availed water in the farm.

Karil claimed that he visited Barwani to meet accountant Kamal Bamanka and sub-engineer Shyam Singh Chouhan and Pawan Mandloi, but to no avail as none of them provided him with required information or even picked his phone. Both Chouhan and Mandloi had Rajpur sub-engineer charge, but they stay in Barwani. Even sub-divisional officer of water resources department does not stay in Rajpur.