Letter to the Hoot: sloppy and misleading

IN Opinion | 01/07/2006

Not only does PTI provide incorrect information, it also misleads the reader by saying that that information came from the WB report.

Dear Editor,

On June 26th Mumbai Mirror carried a PTI story about a report issued by the World Bank. As per the published story:

?Winning candidates on an average spent over 30 times the stipulated amount for a Lok Sabha seat in the 1999 general election in India, says a World Bank report.

While the campaign ceiling for a Lok Sabha seat has been re-pegged at Rs 2,50,000, the average winner spent about Rs 83,00,000 in the 1999 parliamentary election, said the report ?Reforming Public Services in India ? Drawing Lessons from Success?.

The truth however is quite different. The WB report does not say that winning candidates spent ?over 30 times? the stipulated amount. In fact it does not cite any times at all.

As per the WB report, the campaign ceiling was re-pegged to Rs.25 lakhs but the average winner spent Rs.83 lakhs in 1999 election.

The PTI reporter seems to have confused Rs.25 lakhs to Rs.2,50,000 and used that figure to arrive at ?30 times?.

There is one more problem. The re-pegging of the limit that the World Bank report is mentioning happened in 2003. Many years after the 1999 elections. For the 1999 elections, the limit was Rs.15 lakhs. Hence the average winner -- using the WB figures -- spent only about 5 times the limit not ?30 times?.

In this story not only does PTI provide incorrect information about spending, it also misleads the reader by saying that that information came from the WB report.

Seshadri
South Brunswick, NJ, USA
PS: The Mumbai Mirror story is sometimes available at the below link: Mumbai Mirror Story

The better way to access this story is to use ¿Select Prior Issue¿ link and select June 26 2006 date. The story appears in the ¿Nation¿ section.

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