The Haryana Government has spent Rs 113.42 crore on the State Information Commission (SIC) in the past 20 years, while only Rs 2.49 lakh has been spent on creating awareness about the Right to Information (RTI) Act in the state.Interestingly, not even a single rupee has been spent on spreading awareness about the Act in the past 15 years.The state government had implemented the RTI Act on October 12, 2005. It has spent Rs 113.42 crore on the salaries of the state information commissioners and the staff members of the SIC during the past 20 years.This was revealed in RTI information sought by activist PP Kapoor of Samalkha. As per the RTI reply, the SIC was operational from two rented buildings in Chandigarh from October 2005 to December 2024.The SIC shifted to its own building in Sector 3, Panchkula, on December 16, 2024. An amount of Rs 47.63 crore has been spent on the SIC building, including Rs 9.30 crore on buying land and Rs 38.83 crore on the construction.An amount of Rs 79.52 lakh has been spent on the power bill, while Rs 13.62 lakh has been spent on the decoration of the office building.As many as five posts of state information commissioner are lying vacant. Kapoor said the four-storey building was fully functional for 18 months now without a valid occupation certificate and a fire safety certificate.As per the Haryana Building Code, 2017, the occupation certificate is mandatory.In its reply, the SIC said it received a total 1,13,897 second appeals and 12,629 complaints in the past 20 years of which 1,08,288 second appeals and 11,186 complaints had been resolved. Only 5,609 cases of second appeal and 1,443 complaint cases were lying pending.Kapoor said the commission had imposed a total penalty of Rs 1.79 crore on defaulter state public information officers (SPIOs) in the past five years — from 2021 to 2025 — of which Rs 64.55 lakh had been recovered.Apart from it, the commission had uploaded a list of 1,863 defaulting SPIOs on its website and Rs 2.94 crore defaulting penalty amount was yet to be recovered from them so far.Kapoor said the state government had spent crores on state information commissioners and staff members in the past 20 years, but only Rs 2.49 lakh on creating awareness about the RTI Act, while a majority of the SPIOs did not provide information under the Act.Kapoor said spending crores on the salaries in the commission clearly showed that it had become a haven for retired bureaucrats and government favourites. He demanded that the building of the commission, which was operating without the occupation certificate, should be sealed and five vacant posts of information commissioners filled.