To curb corruption in high places, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has made it mandatory for bureaucrats in the state to declare their assets, reports Raju Kumar
In a significant first, Madhya Pradesh has made it mandatory for all civil servants in the state to make details of their moveable and immoveable assets public. The state’s general administration department has asked all division heads, collectors and officers on duty to upload details of all employees under them on the MP government’s official website latest by April 30.
This decision was made on the day the State Information Commission, in a landmark order, ruled that “public authorities related to administration are to assure that public servants under their jurisdiction furnish details about their assets every year without fail.”
The order further said: “Even in cases where RTI is not filed, the details should be put on the website and shared with the public. This will help people keep a constant eye on public servants.”
This landmark decision is expected to pave the way for similar directives in other states. Officers from the central civil services, too, might have to declare assets in the near future. MP has seen a phenomenal rise in corruption cases involving high-level officials and ministers. According to the Congress, the state’s principal Opposition party, the minister-bureaucrat-contractor nexus has led to the institutionalisation of corruption. The party has been demanding that officials and ministers declare their assets. This, the Congress believes, will expose the scams that have taken place during BJP rule.
BJP had hitherto refused to comply. When the Congress was in power in MP, it was mandatory for ministers to declare their assets in the Assembly. The BJP discontinued the tradition. In fact, the demand for declaration of assets by bureaucrats was opposed by both the government and the MP IAS Association.
However, the IAS lobby lost its bargaining power when large-scale income tax raids exposed malfeasance on the part of several IAS officials, including a couple of chief secretary rank. This forced the government on to the back-foot.
However, K.K. Mishra, spokesperson of the Congress state unit, is not impressed. He fumes: “The decision has come close on the heels of the income tax raids. No action had been taken in the past. Was the government shielding the accused?”
The government is in damage control mode. Chief secretary Awani Vaishya repeatedly asserts that the government is determined to punish the culprits. The IAS Association denounced the culprit couple in a hastily-called meeting and stressed on the need for administrative reforms to weed out corruption.
However, this face-saving act by the Association did not find many takers. Given their failure to provide a plausible explanation for their opposition to assets declaration, their reaction was seen more as hypocrisy than genuine concern.
Also, the decision of the state information department came as a surprise to the government. Now, even if the government were to reject the decision, officials would have had to declare their assets to the State Information Department. Naturally, the state government did not want its image to be dented any further and supported the decision. The dynamics changed overnight.
Those who had opposed such measures in the past were now finding it difficult to stick to their stand. Even ministers have decided to resume the asset declaration tradition in the Assembly. The Opposition is trying to pin down the government on the issue of corruption and it is demanding a special discussion in the ongoing session of the House.
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