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| Is State Vigilance Commission another white elephant? | | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 23: State Vigilance Commission (SVC) seems to have become another white elephant with state government spending crores on its functioning and in return, the commission has failed to achieve its objective of bringing corrupt VVIPs to book.
Departments have become habitual of taking the recommendations and inquests initiated by SVC non-seriously. As highlighted by Early Times, 847 complaints referred to Departmental Vigilance Officers (DVOs) by the State Vigilance Commission are pending for action. Not only this, the much touted removal of allegedly corrupt government officials by the state government has failed to pass the legal test. High Court has restored the services of 27 officials which were terminated by the state government on the basis of cases against them lodged by Crime Branch and SVO.
This raises serious questions on state spending more than Rs. 5 crore annually on the functioning of SVC. According to the details available with Early Times, state government has so far spent more than Rs. 1757.59 lakhs i.e. around 17 crores on SVC since it started functioning from February 22, 2013 when the present CVC Kuldeep Khoda and Vigilance Commissioner R.K.Jeerath took oath of office and secrecy in Raj Bhawan, Jammu.
Records clearly show that the state spent around Rs. 299.25 lakh during the first financial year 2013-14 to make SVC functional. The expenses increased in the following year and touched Rs. 384.75 lakh by the end of year 2014-15. In the year 2015-16, state government allocated Rs. 571.79 lakh for the effective functioning of SVC without even seeking a preliminary report from the commission about its functioning. Apart from harassing commoners over frivolous charges, the commission failed to nab even one corrupt civil servant sitting at the top.
Not even one civil servant or police officer was taken to task. Instead, the focus remained on lower rung employees as has been the case Vigilance Department. It has no record to show of having ever put its hands on the top rung officials of the state government. SVC virtually followed SVO while lodging cases and making inquests. The only thing significant which SVC did was issuing handouts, directing departments to improve their functioning and keep the records clean.
It failed to force Departmental Vigilance Officers (DVOs) to speed-up inquiries and complete the same within shortest possible time. Not even one department responded to repeated directives from the SVC for taking action against guilty officials. This all happened during the last four years with state government increasing the budget on yearly basis. The commission spent major portion of budget allocated to it on salaries as is the case with other departments in Jammu and Kashmir.
According to the documents available with Early Times, SVC spent more than Rs. 1 crore on rent i.e. around Rs. 40 lakh per year since year 2013-14. The commission has also spent more than Rs. 30 lakh on POL since its inception. Interestingly, despite having an allocation of around Rs. 4 lakh for spending on secret services, commission failed to come-up with anything which could be attributed to secret services. Commission even desisted from taking cognizance of police claiming of having intercepted a car with cash worth crores of rupees.
Despite having advertisement and publicity budget of more than Rs. 8 lakh, the commission took no major step towards publicizing its functions and encouraging people to file complaints both online as well as offline. With CVC and VC both demitting office by February 2017, the question remains whether the institution has helped the state in fighting against the corrupt and nepotist elements in the state administration or it is purely another huge financial loss to the state exchequer. |
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