Mumbai based RTI activist Anil Galgali has written an open letter to the president asking her to bring all consortium's working on PPP projects under the purview of RTI Act.

Galgali has said that since the projects carried out by the private sector companies are of vital public interest, the information about all the aspects of these projects must be brought under public domain. "There are chances that the private companies may misuse the authority given to them while carrying out these projects and make money through illegal means. This can spread in many sectors to a large extent and hence create a lot of room for scams and may even go out of control. RTI is an effective tool to curb corruption and bring a lot of information before public in general," said the letter.

The country, especially metro cities and even the tier II cities such as Hyderabad, Bangaluru and Pune are witnessing a sea of change with a lot of importance being given to infrastructure development. Projects ranging from power sector to Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) such as metro railways are being conceived and constructed using a unique financial model of PPP- which is a brain child of our Planning Commission. The basic idea behind the PPP model is to save on government revenue and involvement of private sector companies for more professional services in various sectors. While the PPP model has its advantages, there are certain areas of concerns, which I would like to point out for your kind perusal.

Citing the example of Mumbai Metro, Glhali said,"Both metro lines are to be constructed by Reliance Infrastructure along with other foreign private companies. While my demand to bring Reliance Infrastructure under the purview of RTI has been accepted by state information commissioner (CIC), the same has been challenged by the company in the Bombay High Court."