80-year-old woman gets back money after 7 years

BPS EXCESS AMOUNT

Hyderabad: Right to Information (RTI) Act brought a big relief to an 80-year-old woman who has been fighting to get back ‘excess’ money paid under Building Penalisation Scheme (BPS) for the past seven years.

In hurry to avoid demolition by the GHMC officials, K Rajeshwari had paid Rs 1.37 lakh as per the BPS scheme. After some time, she came to know that she did not need to pay paid such high amount as the actual amount she was entitled to pay was Rs 11,616 only.

Rajeshwari requested the Deputy Commissioner, Circle 10, Khairatabad, to refund the excess amount she had paid on November 2011. But there was no positive response from the officials. Rajeshwari again represented her case to the GHMC officials in March 2015.

When she did not get any response, she filed an application to the Deputy Commissioner and Public Information Officer (PIO), Zonal Commissioner and the First Appellate Authority in May 2015. Since there was no response from the officials, she filed the second appeal with the AP Information Commission requesting for relevant information from PIO. State Information Commissioner Dr Varre Venkateshwarlu observed that Rajeshwari was pursuing refund of excess amount from 2009 and no action was taken.