Matter of serious concern

25/04/2018

Though menace of corruption has remained a matter of serious concern in Jammu and Kashmir yet the PDP-BJP Coalition Government is not paying any serious attention towards strengthening internal vigilance in the departments and Public Sector Undertakings as a measure to reduce the space for corrupt practices. This can be gauged from the fact that no steps are being taken to strengthen the institution of Departmental Vigilance Officers (DVOs), which otherwise has failed to yield the desirable results. An effective internal mechanism, which measures inefficiency, inaction and abuse or misuse of power by officers in Government departments and Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), is a requirement for good governance. Unless internal vigilance in Government departments and PSUs improves it will be difficult to achieve the objective of corruption free administration. Keeping all these aspects in mind the institution of Departmental Vigilance Officers was introduced in Jammu and Kashmir in 1994 with the issuance of circular instructions by the General Administration Department. The institution of Departmental Vigilance Officers was actually a step forward towards utilizing the services of the officers of integrity within the concerned department to provide a helping hand to curb corrupt practices.
However, no efforts are being made to make Departmental Vigilance Officers accountable for being watchful. Moreover, there are large numbers of departments where DVOs have not been appointed by the Government after the earlier ones got transferred or retired and interestingly, the State Vigilance Organization is also not aware about the DVOs in different departments and PSUs. The failure of the Government to strengthen the institution of DVOs and making them accountable can be gauged from the fact that rate of disposal of complaints being referred to DVOs by the State Vigilance Organization remains dismal during the past several years. These complaints generally pertain to violation of codal formalities in the award of contracts in Government works, purchases, appointments, promotions and denial of services by the Government servants. On one side the DVOs wherever they have been nominated are not performing their duties up to the satisfaction of Vigilance Organization and Vigilance Commission and on the other side the Government is not showing any interest in either strengthening internal vigilance mechanism or making DVOs accountable. The intensity of non-serious approach of the Government can be further gauged from the fact that during the past nearly seven years no conference of the DVOs has been convened which otherwise is imperative to give them instructions and directions from the common platform about the intentions of the Government about tackling the menace of corruption, sources said while disclosing that last DVOs conference was convened in July 2011.

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