Women's panel row: UP blames typo

Lucknow, July 16 (IANS) Faced with outrage over downsizing the budget for the state women's commission, the Uttar Pradesh government Wednesday clarified that information given in response to an RTI poser were "factually incorrect".

The government said the state women's commission had "erroneously" released the facts and attributed it to a typographical error by a clerk.

Earlier, a Right to Information (RTI) query posed by social activist Urvashi Sharma revealed that the Samajwadi Party government has slashed the budgetary allocations made to the state women's commission in the past three years.

A clarification to this effect was sent to the social activist Wednesday and copies of which were also sent to chief information commissioner of the state and principal secretary (information) Navneet Sehgal.

In a statement, the women's panel also said the budget for the financial year 2014-15 had in fact been increased by the Akhilesh Yadav government.

Opposition parties - the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - Wednesday slammed the state government over the issue.

"We condemn this move. When BSP was in power, it had started welfare scheme for the poor, Dalits and downtrodden," BSP chief Mayawati said.

Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury said: "This is the tragedy of our time. Life of a woman is considered lower than the value of a bicycle."