CM Mayawati directs officials to work on the strategy to stem the rot of corruption-21/9/11

CM directs officials to stem corruption

TNN | Sep 21, 2011, 05.34AM IST



Lucknow: Waking up to the issue of corruption rampant in government departments, chief minister Mayawati on Tuesday directed cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh to work on on strategy to stem the rot.

"It is high time to act tough and take action against the corrupt officials to improve the governance," Mayawati averred at a high-level review meeting here and ordered that officials indifferent towards their duties and responsibilities should be sent on compulsory retirement after identifying them through a process of screening.

While reiterating her commitment to remove corruption at every level, she directed district magistrates to put corrupt officials under surveillance and get them trapped red-handed after gathering sufficient intelligence information about their corrupt deeds. "All this is necessary to remove corruption," she said, adding that nobody would be spared for any corrupt practices.

The message, she said, should be sent loud and clear to all divisional commissioners, district magistrates and district police chiefs and they should be warned against any lapses. These officers should be held accountable to enforce her order in letter and spirit in their respective jurisdictions, the CM said.

Elaborating the directives given by the CM, the cabinet secretary said that she had also asked the divisional commissioners and DMs to ensure effective implementation of the Janhit Guarantee Law. With the implementation of this law in the state, the CM said, "People are now entitled to get identified services in a time bound manner."

The CM said that the state under this law had notified 13 services of prime need for the people belonging to weaker and poor sections of the society. She further said that the scope of the Act should be broadened by identifying new services of utmost importance like the one related to the transport department.

The Act envisages the provisions of imposing fine and punishment on officers found guilty of not providing specified services in a time-bound manner to the people. There is also a provision to pay the fine being recovered from the erring officials to the aggrieved applicants under a set procedure. Thus the purpose behind this is to fix accountability of officials and make them answerable to people.

The CM said that this should be widely publicised by DMs and commissioners in order to create awareness among people.

Dwelling upon other issues, she further directed the officials to remain present on all working days from 10.00 a.m. to 12.00 noon to listen to the problems of people and asked them that complaint register should be maintained by them in order to monitor the action taken on the complaint till the time it was finally disposed.

Other things emphasised by her were random inspection, particularly of rural areas by DMs, mandatory visit of five villages by SDMs and decision making in a time-bound manner, particularly in matters related to vigilance inquiry into corruption cases.