Congress calls for white paper on 'awards' to Gujarat

Gandhinagar, Oct 4 (UNI) Leader of the opposition in Gujarat assembly Arjun Modhwadia today claimed the government was misleading the people about the 'awards' received by the state and demanded that it issue a white paper on the matter.

Addressing mediapersons here, Modhwadia said he had written to the state information department on January 9, 2006 seeking details of various awards that the chief minister has been claiming.

He said recently the government claimed it had bagged the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation award on which no clarification has been issued so far.

Mr Modhwadia said that he had sought details from the state chief secretary on February 28, 2007 about these 'mysterious' awards. Yet no clarification or a reply has been forthcoming so far, he said.

He had asked details of the following awards: India Today's' award; three awards given by Computer Society of India, joint award by the Centre and Nihiland Technology Facilitation award; Award for the best e-governed state ''Best Citizen Charter'' award and good governance gold medal from ''Commonwealth association.'' Mr Modhwadia also revealed that he had used the RTI act to get the true picture but to no avail.

UNI