Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent: Inside a Village RTI Battle for Transparency in Rural Development Funds

Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent is an ongoing issue that revolves around the corrupt images uploaded on the GPDP portal of the government. Indeed, this situation not only raises serious questions about the transparency and integrity of the platform but also highlights a significant lack of accountability among government officials. Currently, the District Development Officer (DDO), the District Public Relation Officer (DPRO), and the Block Development Officer (BDO) of Chhanbey are evading their responsibilities by refusing to provide vital information to those seeking answers. As a result, this unwillingness to engage and disclose relevant data undermines public trust and complicates the efforts of citizens who are trying to hold the government accountable. Therefore, it is essential for these officers to address the situation promptly and restore faith in the public information system.

Introduction: Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent — Where It Began

Ashok Kumar Maurya lives in Gram Panchayat Bihasada Khurd, Block Chhanbey, District Mirzapur. Specifically, he asked a simple question: do the numbers on government portals match the numbers on the ground? So, he used the Right to Information Act, 2005 to find out. Ultimately, what he found looks like a textbook case of Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent. On one hand, a public disclosure board tells one story. On the other hand, the officials who should correct it choose to stay quiet instead. Overall, this case shows both the strengths and the weak points of India’s transparency law.

The Trigger: A Mismatch Between Portal Data and Public Boards

The Ministry of Panchayati Raj runs the eGramSwaraj portal. Specifically, it should show the public exactly how much money a Gram Panchayat receives and spends. For Bihasada Khurd, for example, the portal listed a cumulative allocation of over Rs. 1.33 crore. However, it recorded expenditure of only about Rs. 37 lakh across four financial years, from 2022-23 to 2025-26.

In addition, the village displays a physical Public Information Board. This board exists mainly for residents without internet access. Specifically, it listed estimated costs for specific works: handpump repairs, drain construction, soak pits, interlocking roads, painting of the Panchayat Bhawan, and a submersible pump with a water tank. Later, Maurya compared these figures against what the Panchayat Secretary disclosed under RTI. Ultimately, the numbers did not add up.

Core Issue One: The Board Lies — Works Shown as “Completed” That Were Never Paid For

The most serious allegation in this case involves three works: drain construction, soak pit construction, and interlocking work. Specifically, the Public Information Board listed all three under “Details of Work Done” (कराये गये कार्य का स्थलीय विवरण). Therefore, that heading suggests the Panchayat had already executed these works. However, the PIO’s own RTI response admitted something different: nobody paid for them. In fact, they existed only as line items in the Action Plan, with zero expenditure recorded against them.

Clearly, a board that tells villagers a drain exists, when the administration admits it never paid for one, does more than mislead. In fact, it misrepresents the public record to the very citizens it was meant to inform. Thus, this is the first face of Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent: a public document making a claim the record itself contradicts.

Core Issue Two: A Wrong Village’s Data Uploaded to the Portal

Moreover, the problem runs deeper. Specifically, the Panchayat Secretary’s response admitted that officials uploaded the Public Information Board of a different Gram Panchayat — Bagedha Khurd — as the second page of Bihasada Khurd’s own portal disclosure. The PIO called this a “technical error.” However, Section 4 of the RTI Act requires public authorities to make proactive and accurate disclosures on their own. Even so, an unintentional swap of one village’s financial data for another’s undermines a citizen’s basic right to monitor local development. Indeed, that right is exactly what Section 4 exists to protect.

Core Issue Three: Handpump Repairs and the Question of Inflated Claims

First, the board estimated handpump repair work at Rs. 35,000. However, the PIO’s disclosed figures told a different story: a combined expenditure of Rs. 55,202, made up of Rs. 38,682 on materials and Rs. 16,520 on labour, spent across seventeen handpump locations. Consequently, that figure exceeds the public estimate by more than 50 percent. Moreover, no evidence shows any prior public notice explaining the increase.

By contrast, the painting work shows the opposite pattern. Here, the board estimated Rs. 190,000 for painting the Panchayat Bhawan. Yet the PIO’s records show the Panchayat actually paid only Rs. 32,750. So, why did the board display such a large estimate if the eventual spend came to a fraction of it? Ultimately, that question remains unanswered.

Core Issue Four: The Officer Stays Silent — Procedural Failure Under Section 6(3)

Next, the case moved to the District Development Officer’s (DDO) office in Mirzapur. There, Maurya filed a follow-up RTI application, seeking audited ledgers, vouchers, and Measurement Book copies. At this stage, a second, distinct problem emerged.

Section 6(3) of the RTI Act sets a clear rule. Specifically, when a request more properly belongs with another public authority, the PIO must transfer it within five days and inform the applicant. However, the DDO’s office did neither. In other words, it did not supply the information, and it did not transfer the file to the authority that actually holds the Panchayat-level records. Instead, it simply marked the application “disposed of.”

Indeed, this is not a minor technicality. Rather, Section 6(3) protects applicants from hitting a dead end just because they approached the wrong office in a layered bureaucracy. Specifically, a PIO must either answer the query using information reasonably available from the concerned authority, or formally transfer the file. Therefore, closing the file without doing either forms the second pillar of Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent: silence dressed up as disposal. As a result, this failure now sits at the centre of a First Appeal before the Appellate Authority.

Core Issue Five: The Slow Climb Through Appeals

This case has already passed through one Second Appeal before the Uttar Pradesh State Information Commission. At the hearing, the Commission orally pronounced the case “disposed”, but the certified written order took weeks to appear online. Consequently, Maurya then filed a fresh RTI query asking about the Commission’s own delay in issuing signed orders.

Meanwhile, two more proceedings now run in parallel. First, a First Appeal awaits a decision before the DDO’s appellate authority. Second, a fresh RTI application sits with the Panchayati Raj Directorate, filed in an effort to secure the same records from a different, potentially more authoritative, source.

Why This Case Matters Beyond One Village

Bihasada Khurd is one Gram Panchayat among more than 2.5 lakh across India. Indeed, most of them display similar Public Information Boards and file similar accounts on eGramSwaraj. Here, this village shows a wide gap between displayed estimates, actual expenditure, and audited records. Specifically, officials marked unexecuted works as completed, and one village’s disclosure board overwrote another’s. Therefore, if this pattern repeats elsewhere, it raises a real question about how reliable grassroots financial transparency actually is across rural India.

Conclusion: What Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent Reveals About the RTI Act

The RTI Act, 2005 rests on a simple premise: sunlight disinfects. Specifically, when citizens can see how public money moves, officials find it harder to hide misuse. Indeed, this case proves both halves of that premise. On one hand, a single villager, filing one application after another, surfaced real discrepancies between what the public sees and what the records actually say. On the other hand, the case also shows how procedural shortcuts can slow that sunlight down — a missed transfer under Section 6(3), an unresolved board error, an appeal still waiting for its written order.

In short, Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent is not just a description of one village’s paperwork. Rather, it names a pattern the RTI Act was written to break. Ultimately, the pending appeals will decide whether the law’s own safeguards are enough to close the gap between the board on the wall and the ledger in the file.

Based on all documents and correspondence shared in this conversation, here’s a consolidated reference table of the concerned public authorities, application IDs, and contact details:

Application / Case Reference IDs

Proceeding	Reference/Registration No.	Date Filed	Status
Original RTI (Gram Panchayat, via BDO Chhanbey)	Registration No. 61040 (online)	26/06/2026	Transferred by DVO Mirzapur (Patrank 548, 09/07/2026)
Second Appeal (UP State Information Commission)	S09/A/0494/2025 (Reg. No. A20250200829)	—	Disposed 11/05/2026; written order 10/05/2026
RTI to DDO Mirzapur (Commissioner Rural Development)	COMRD/R/2026/61040	26/06/2026	Disposed 17/07/2026
First Appeal (Mirzapur-CDO, FAA)	COMRD/A/2026/60840	20/07/2026	Received, pending
RTI to DPRO Mirzapur (Panchayati Raj Directorate)	DIRPR/R/2026/63290	20/07/2026	Filed, pending

Public Authorities & Contact Details (Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent)

1. Commissioner Rural Development (DDO Office, Mirzapur)

• PIO: Shrawan Kumar Rai (DDO Mirzapur)
• Email: ddomirzapur123@gmail.com
• Mobile: 9454465108
• Nodal Officer: Bechalal — crd-up@nic.in / 9839189547

2. First Appellate Authority — Mirzapur-CDO

• Email: drda-mir@nic.in
• Mobile: 9454465108

3. Panchayati Raj Directorate (DPRO Mirzapur) (Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent)

• PIO: Mirzapur-DPRO
• Email: dpromi-up@nic.in
• Mobile: 9506150545
• Nodal Officer: up.panchayatiraj@gmail.com / 9795140577

4. Uttar Pradesh State Information Commission

• Hearing Room S-9: hearingcourts9.upic@up.gov.in
• Registrar/Commission office (certified copy requests): Mumtaz Ahmad, Administrative Officer — 0522-2724945
• First Appellate contact (State Commission level): Tejaskar Pandey, Deputy Secretary — 0522-2724941
• Official website: upic.gov.in

5. UP Government RTI Online Portal (Board Lies & Officer Stays Silent)

• Website: rtionline.up.gov.in

6. Block Development Officer, Chhanbey, Mirzapur

• Email: bdo.chhanbey96@rediffmail.com
• Secretary (Gram Panchayat Officer): Dileep Kumar Yadav — dileepline4@gmail.com