No provision for govt accommodation to 'outside cadre': RTI

Though there is no provision in state policy to provide government accommodation to officers and employees of the 'outside cadre' in Maharashtra, an RTI query has found that some of them have been provided this facility apparently by exercising special powers of the Chief Minister.
The Right to Information query, filed by activist Anil Galgali with the state General Administration Department (GAD), had sought details regarding allotment of government accommodations to Officers on Special Duty (OSDs) at Chief Minister's Office.
In reply, GAD's Under Secretary S M Dhule said there was no such provision in the policy, drafted in 1995, for providing of government accommodation to the officers and employees of the 'outside cadre'.

However, as per the RTI, the Chief Minister has special rights to allot 10 per cent of the available accommodation as special cases.
Galgali had also sought the list of babus in the waiting list who were in queue to get the accommodation, but it was not provided citing that the query was "out of scope".
Galgali said he would challenge it with the appellate authority.

Earlier, an RTI query filed by Galgali had found that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis appointed as many as eight external staffers as OSDs in CMO with monthly expenses on their salary totalling Rs 7.69 lakh.

Galgali said, "I filed this RTI query in the follow-up of my first query to know that what are the other benefits these outsider staffers were availing from the government bypassing senior bureaucrats' rights."
When contacted, a senior officer in Public Relations Department of the CMO office said they need time to respond the query.