Senior bureaucrats have put a blanket ban on private company amusement dolls entry into their cabins. These young women have been asked to keep away from office and could only call on cell phones of officers. Reportedly, these dolls work in private investment, insurance companies and have been engaged in huge business from IAS, IPS and IFS officers in the government. After raids on an IAS couple recently, senior officers are scared and are shying away from them. Rumours in the State secretariat claim that the ICICI Prudential ma'am, recently in media limelight has brought problems for 13 more IAS officers who were frequently visited by her at office. She reportedly managed their holiday tours also.
IPS officers score above IAS
The IPS officers seemed to have scored much higher than IAS officers in the race for unaccountable wealth. Most of this wealth of IPS officers is parked in immovable property. More than 7 big property dealers spend most of their day time at Police Headquarters. Yes, compared to IAS officers, three senior women agents from private insurance companies and two officers from private banks are in high demand at PHQ. Senior IPS officers keep a tab on movement of these private company officials to see who is parking his/her money with them. A senior IPS officer who was earlier posted in Bhopal, has recently invested huge money. Seven IPS officers have been investing in properties, through a retired ADG rank IPS officer who is involved in property dealing and is also known as an investor for officers in the uniform.
IT bonanza siphons fund
`Information Technology' turns out to be the magic word that shells out huge amounts of money for few IT literate officials in the state. Computers in government offices have turned into cosmetic beauty of all government offices today. It has turned out to be as important as the picture of the Father of the nation, that keep hanging on wall, but rarely wiped to remove mounting dust. Likewise, laptops to senior bureaucrats, massive irregularities in purchase of desk top computers in Police, Transport, Revenue, Health, Culture departments turned into phantom scams. Tenders floated mentioned specifications of computers but supplies did not match them. Fortunately, there is no technical expert committee to catch the latch, thus some IT friendly bureaucrats made merry as no one was literate enough to catch the flaw.
CM seeks top confidential report from CS
The chief secretary Avni Vaish has been entrusted with a top secret mission by the chief minister. The three tier mission includes, a report on officers facing charges of irregularities in their departments or any investigation agency (inside the state or outside). Second tier of the report is how many bureaucrats has accumulated disproportionate wealth and what is their status of postings. Third and most difficult task is to ensure that corrupt (deemed) officers are not designated on lucrative posts. The IAS officers tea club has been discussing that from where would Vaish dig out honest of the state, officials to man the so many lucrative posts.
With a major administrative surgery just round the corner, the CS has a special task at hand, because transfers would be affected by the confidential report of the CS. Sources sipping coffee in the club quipped corruption always spurs from power points and decentralizes to the bottom. It is easy to trace the corrupt, the CS has only to list names of officers close to the HOT seats in the state. But could any officer point this out, is a matter of courage rather than competence.
Healthy department, sick people
Motive is state HEALTH, weather it is the Health Department or people, hardly matters. Unfortunately, this is the pathetic state of affairs of the Health Department. Having a history of one of the most prospering departments, we could hardly forget losing a minister of the department on corruption charges, a principal secretary, two directors and many others to come in future. Lately, with decentralization of purchases at divisional and district levels, corruption has gone down to district levels in the department. Rising of fatal diseases in the state is common affair nowadays. Figures of Malarial deaths, malnutrition, anemic mothers, status of AIDS, etc. are not update. We do not know which disease to combat first or at which priority. All districts are purchasing medicines and medical equipment at will. Rates of purchases of these branded companies differ in all districts. But health status of people keeps declining. Fund allotments are being done at Bhopal levels with no policy and no fund utilization certificates are sought. It is easy money coming and so, it is easy money going. The Health Department is getting money from the union government, state government and more than a dozen other mother NGOs including CARE, UNICEF etc. Apart from monetary support, support through equipment and programmes is another major fund source. Thus audit is a mere formality and rarely anything is written in the red.
LUN: 3 percent cut only
The Madhya Pradesh Laghu Udyog Nigam Ltd has limited its work to 3 percent commission officially charged to endorse rates of commodities and give an official approval to government purchase. Thus cross the hurdle of MPLUN, get rates approved and start pumping sub-standard commodities in government offices. This came true in many case where LUN failed to examine technicalities of electronic, medical products and gave approvals. In a like case, The Education department directed all government colleges to purchase a hand impression electronic admit card machine. The equipment was to be installed in every college in order to ensure that all teaching and non teaching staff comes on time and also leaves the college at time. The machine was costing around Rs 1.5 lakh and was to be purchased from the Jan Bhagidari funds (Public Participation). The machines were to be purchased on LUN approved rates.
Most of the colleges refused to spend the Public Participation fund for the purchase. But principal of one Government College purchased the machine. The machine was operative for hardly three months before developing a technical snag. It could not be repaired till date as there is no after sales service available. LUN got its cut from the cake, rest, who bothers.
Money spilling department obliges all
The state government seems to have an ever milking cow at its support. The Mandi Board, the Kuber has been savior for many politicians and bureaucrats alike. The first time former chief minister Digvijay Singh exploited the department funds for connecting Mandis to main roads. Then Uma Bharati for Gau Shalas, Babulal Gaur and others. All these programs have been implemented from the easy money of the farmers (Mandi Tax) and only god knows hoe efficiently these funds are being utilized.
Even bureaucrats have made merry with this money. A managing director held a blood donation and check-up camp recently and directed all around 300 employees to participate in it. Though, namely an employee welfare camp, but the Board paid Rs 1500 per employee to the doctor. Another managing director siphoned almost Rs 3 crores for activities like kissan panchayat etc. It may be recalled that initially, this accumulated and increasing fund was used
Adhir Kumar Saxena
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Sunday, August 01, 2010
