Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, June 17: Though improving vigilance administration encourages culture of honesty and prevents possibilities of corruption, nepotism and maladministration, yet this aspect is not receiving the required attention from majority of the Government departments in Jammu and Kashmir and they are flouting with impunity the directives in this regard issued from time to time by the General Administration Department.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that in order to improve the vigilance administration in the Government departments, the General Administration Department vide its Circular No.28 dated September 27, 2013 issued a set of guidelines and instructions for reducing delays in departmental enquiries.
The objective behind issuance of detailed guidelines was to ensure that the vigilance matters are addressed on top priority and the pending cases of enquiries settled in a time bound manner, they said. The stress was laid on time-bound completion of departmental enquiries as one major source of corruption is that the guilty are not punished adequately and more important they are not punished promptly, sources added.
While issuing these guidelines, the General Administration Department had observed that the departmental response to the communications from the Vigilance Organization/GAD Vigilance for initiation of departmental action by the Administrative departments was abysmally low, sources informed, adding it was further observed by the GAD at that time that the response, whenever shown, was usually inadequate.
In order to ensure that the departments don’t make any excuse, the General Administration Department vide Circular No.36-Vig dated November 28, 2013 issued a proforma for furnishing information of the cases related with departmental action/inquiries against the Government officers/officials at the end of each month for perusal and consideration of the GAD authorities, sources further informed.
“There were two sets of proforma—one for furnishing information regarding all regular departmental action cases/departmental cases referred to various departments by the Vigilance Organization/GAD Vigilance and another in respect of departmental inquiries”, they said. Through these proformas, the information about the nature of complaint, whether preliminary inquiry conducted, whether charge-sheet issued, whether Inquiry Officer appointed, status of inquiry and whether any penalty recommended/imposed was sought by the General Administration Department.
“However, majority of the departments are flouting with impunity the directives of the General Administration Department and are not furnishing monthly data”, sources regretted, adding “the non-compliance of the directives clearly indicates that those at the helm of affairs in such departments don’t want to improve vigilance administration, which otherwise is a major weapon in their hands to prevent possibilities of corruption, nepotism and maladministration”.
“Had there been strict compliance about the directives, the fate of 147 departmental inquiries would have not been hanging in balance”, sources pointed out.
When contacted, a senior officer of the General Administration Department admitted, “the compliance to the directives about improving vigilance administration is not satisfactorily”, adding “we are going to take some more steps in order to streamline the monthly information furnishing system”.
According to the sources, Chief Secretary, Mohammad Iqbal Khandey, in the past few meetings of the Committee of Secretaries had also laid stress on strict compliance to the instructions regarding improving vigilance administration in the departments.
As per the guidelines, all the departments are required to consolidate the details of the vigilance cases referred to them by the GAD (Vigilance) or Vigilance Organization, from time to time, and prepare a reliable database and the complaints forwarded by the Vigilance Organization/GAD Vigilance should be disposed of within a period of one month. Moreover, in respect of the case referred to by the Vigilance Organization for preliminary enquiries the necessary action is required to be completed within a period of 45 days.
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