The Government expects citizens to obey the law of the land and perform their duties in accordance with the rules. However, contrary to the expectations of the citizens, the same Government violates the rules to avoid fixing responsibility in case of any irregularity on part of the bureaucracy. And, the trend started ever since Right to Information (RTI) Act came into force, as officials are not very comfortable with the demand for transparency in Government offices. So, conscious efforts are being made to defeat the objectives of good governance by keeping loopholes in effective implementation of good provisions of rules. At Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) no Records Keeper is nominated in the Property Tax Department. This was revealed through an application filed under RTI Act with the Department of Archives, Maharashtra Government, seeking names of Record Keepers in Property Tax Department (PT) at NMC. The query returned with remarks that no such record existed with them, said Shankar Gulani, an RTI crusader who has been exposing the irregularities in the Property Tax Department, which is the NMC’s cash cow.

Property Tax is the single-biggest revenue earner for NMC and hence it is imperative for the Municipal Commissioner, as the Head of Department, to ensure that some senior officer is nominated as Records-Keeper. Leave alone providing information under RTI, the department does not, for its own record, even have the history of payments and proper records of the properties enumerated by its officials. It is shocking that, to date, NMC bosses have not made any determined efforts to anoint Records Keeper for reasons best known to them.