RTI exposes scam in Bihar

BY ajay kumar| IN Media Practice | 31/10/2007

Earlier this month a journalist in Bihar proved that there is no time bar to the skeletons that can be dug out from Government cupboards using RTI. In a response to Prakash Singh, correspondent NDTV, the   Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board confessed that none of the four candidates recommended for admission in Mahatama Gandhi Medical college, Jamshedpur scored even 50 percent marks in the admission test which was the   minimum requirement for such recommendation.

The recommendations were made academic session 1998-99 and  1999-2000. The reporter got this information in a letter dated 15.10.2007.Perhaps it is for the first time that a major bungling in the recommendation  for admission in medical colleges by Bihar govt. was exposed through the effective use of RTI by a journalist.

 Interestingly one of the candidates, Sandhya Mishra did not even appear forthe entrance examination. The name of   Jyoti Verma,  daughter of then Commissioner of South Chhotanagpur, in the panel of recommended candidares speaks volumes about how transparently our steel frame   are working. Ms Verma did not qualify for such recommendation. Recently, a  raid was conducted on this IAS officer¿s house which yielded  property worth  crores of rupees.

Surprisingly,  the then Chief Secretary pointed out all these lacuna but the   then Health secretary, A K Chaudhary had the audacity to ignore his boss in nominating these unqualified candidates for  reasons best known to him. This shortcut route for making V.I.Ps¿ wards as doctors continued even after that  in the recommendation of 1999-2000. The daughter of an MLC and a former minister figured in the list although their ranks   were as low as at 13728 and 19396.

Perhaps there is hardly any defense against all these misdeeds. The journalist has proved with all available documents that how rusted is our steel frame civil service. Some more skeletons could tumble out from the cupboard if media start becoming a real watchdog of our society. In an age of fast communication with easy access to even an ordinary citizen, media is making everybody more and more accountable every passing day. The days are over when media used to dictate their views on masses and powerful section used its own knack to manage news in its favour. In a changed situation, even a blog or a news portal can break any news worth reading. The days of media management is now over and people well understand the meaning in between the lines.  Even then, this story was not carried  by the Hindustan  and the Hindustan Times  only gave the government version.