Petitioner opposes MCD plan to outsource digitisation of its records

Paras Tyagi of CYCLE said the outsourcing bid reflects poor use of public resources when govt already had an archives department with infra capabilities to do the work in-house

As the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) moves to digitise its records following a high court order, the petitioner in the case has approached the Delhi government against the civic body’s plans to outsource the work, calling it a waste of public funds.

On February 4, the Delhi high court had pulled up the MCD for failing to upload and update public documents for over 20 years, in violation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. (HT Archive)

In a letter to the chief minister and chief secretary, the Centre for Youth Culture Law and Environment (CYCLE) urged that the exercise be routed through the Delhi government’s department of archives, which already has digitisation infrastructure.

“The MCD proposal is to hire an external agency for scanning and digitisation of records with per-page payment. At the same time, the Delhi government, through its department of archives, has already invested crores of rupees in acquiring high-end scanning and digital archival infrastructure for preservation and digitisation of records,” the letter said.

Paras Tyagi of CYCLE said the outsourcing bid reflects poor use of public resources. “Instead of using existing infrastructure and inter-departmental coordination, the MCD has floated a tender. It speaks volumes about the present model of governance.”

On February 4, the Delhi high court had pulled up the MCD for failing to upload and update public documents for over 20 years, in violation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.

A bench of chief justice DK Upadhyaya and justice Tejas Karia was hearing a petition filed by CYCLE, which sought directions for the civic body to proactively disclose legislative reports, resolutions passed by its standing committee, and related public information as required under Section 4 of the RTI Act.

“You are required to upload and update the information. What have you been doing? … You have not done this exercise in 20 years,” the bench said.

The court directed the MCD to file an affidavit on compliance with Section 4 of the RTI Act. The matter will be heard on April 17.

Acting on the high court order, a policy proposal was passed by the house of councillors on February 16 to make records of its standing committee and house meetings available on its website. Initially, only records from 2022 to 2026 will be made public, for which an expert agency will be hired to set up a scanning and digitisation centre at the Civic Centre.

The records include resolutions and minutes of the house and standing committee. The corporation holds over one million pages dating back to 1958, many of them in poor condition.

A senior municipal official, requesting anonymity, said the documents cannot be moved to another department and digitisation must be carried out at the headquarters. “Some of the documents are so brittle that they will be damaged if moved. Scanning and digitisation on site can help preserve them. This process can be extended to archival material from 1957 onwards.”