*Internal vigilance in deptts remains distant dream
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 26: Though there is constant rise in number of corruption related complaints against the Government functionaries in Jammu and Kashmir yet no attention is being paid towards giving much-needed impetus to the institution of Departmental Vigilance Officers (DVOs) as a result of which internal vigilance has remained a distant dream in majority of the departments. The intensity of non-seriousness can be gauged from the fact that no conference of the DVOs has been convened during the past over five years although the same is required to be held every year.
The concept of Departmental Vigilance Officers in the Government departments and Public Sector Undertakings is not a new one. In the Central Government, this institution is in existence since 1950 while as in Jammu and Kashmir the process of appointment of DVOs was started in 1994 with the issuance of GAD Circular No. 12 of 1994 dated February 22, 1994.
To make this institution more useful the idea finds reiteration in GAD Order No.12 of 2002 dated June 19, 2002 and the GAD Circular No.12 of 2003 dated May 26, 2003. The idea behind having institution of DVOs was to strengthen internal vigilance mechanism in all the Government departments and PSUs.
However, no serious efforts are being made to give necessary impetus to this mechanism as a result of which institution of DVOs has failed to yield the desired results even several decades after its establishment, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
They said that every year hundreds of complaints about violation of codal formalities in the award of contracts in Government works, purchases, appointments, promotions and transfers, denial of services by the Government servants are referred by the State Vigilance Organization to the DVOs for departmental verifications but their disposal rate is not at all satisfactory.
“Due to this the number of complaints with the Departm-ental Vigilance Officers are piling up regularly and the accused officers and officials are remaining unpunished”, sources said while disclosing that the complaints which are referred to DVOs often lack specific details and unless more details on the basis of official records are made available to the State Vigilance Organization they don’t attract provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
They informed that no special efforts are being made by the Government to periodically review performance of DVOs so as to ensure that they start yielding the desired results. “The non-seriousness is being shown towards giving impetus to institution of DVOs despite the fact that unless internal vigilance in Government departments improves it will be difficult to achieve objective of corruption free administration”, sources added.
The intensity of non-serious approach can be further gauged from the fact that during the past over 5 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.
Highlighting the need of strengthening institution of DVOs, sources said, “corruption is an all pervasive phenomenon, which knows no boundaries and barriers and there is a deluge of complaints being received by the Government as well as State Vigilance Organization alleging omission and commission by Government officers”.
“The institution of Departmental Vigilance Officers has been established to provide a helping hand to curb corrupt practices and unless all out efforts are made to strengthen the institution the objective of having internal vigilance will remain a distant dream”, sources stressed, adding “explicit directions are required to be issued to heads of all the departments for providing all assistance to DVOs in accomplishment of task assigned to them as there are numerous instances which indicate that for want of required cooperation from the superior officers the DVOs are finding it difficult to dispose of the complaints referred to them by the State Vigilance Organization”.
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