After many hiccups, the prestigious State Vigilance Commission (SVC) came into being formally on 22 February 2013. But the startling thing is that so far the General Administrative Department has not formed the rules of business for the organization. The travesty is that there are not one but two almost parallel organizations the State Vigilance Commission and the Vigilance Organization in the State. As such the first thing that the Government should have done was to set in black and white respective role of these agencies and make clear the separation of functions and powers. In absence of this pre-requisite, there is more confusion about the seriousness of the Government to eradicate corruption. Ten months have gone by when the SVC was formally announced and still the rules and procedures are nowhere in sight.
With abysmal shortage of staff and without defined direction, it should be no surprise if 300 cases of corruption against Government Departments and Public Undertakings have accumulated over the time and there is no early hope of their resolution. These cases are about corruption, embezzlement, misappropriation and other grave irregularities committed by functionaries of Government departments or Public Undertakings in the State. According to inputs available, there are only 14 functionaries available to the Commission while its minimum requirement of manpower is 84 staffers. One important reason of SVC not being able to dispose the cases is that in many cases technical and legal advice is to be obtained necessarily. The Commission is not equipped with either a legal adviser or a technical hand. Any enquiry into a case of corruption and the follow up action should be supported by legal and technical paradigm. In absence of this requirement the SVC cannot proceed in the matter of investigation. Again, the SVC would very much like to forward relevant cases to the Vigilance Organization for investigation but the question is what relevance means in absence of rules and procedures that should have been defined in good time. There are 30 administrative departments and several Public Sector undertaking in the State. How can we expect the SVC with barely 14 staffers at its disposal to deal with a large number of cases that are brought to its notice? 80 per shortage of staff mean that the organization is totally paralyzed.
Our State has been boasting that it has set up an effective mechanism of dealing with corruption in administrative and public sector enterprise area. We even went to the length of saying that we were first to establish the mechanism. But the real question is how far is this mechanism functional. We have often said that accountability is the element that will go a long way in curbing corruption and other malpractices in Government departments. People had felt happy and hopeful with the creation of SVC. They expected that the corrupt would be brought to book and civil society would be spared the perfidy to which they have been subjected since a long time. But with the picture that has been portrayed by the insiders of the SVC belies the hopes and expectations of ordinary people.
We would like that the Government takes a very serious view of the situation prevailing with the SVC and reinforce it with adequate technical, legal and other staff besides clarifying the rules according to which the organization should function. Corruption will be a much debated issue during the forthcoming parliamentary elections. No sensible political parties take the voter for granted.
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