Food and Civil Supplies Minister Saryu Roy on Tuesday candidly admitted that the government’s directive to block supply officers (BSOs) to disclose their assets disclosure have fallen on deaf ears, but, at the same time, warned them of stern action.
The department of Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasha has made submission of asset details mandatory in matters of promotion in job.
According to sources in the department, the number of officials complying with the order has not crossed double digit of around 150 BSOs currently active in different blocks of Jharkhand. Although the department moved in the direction of granting job promotion in May, 2015; responses from the BSOs were far from encouraging. Even as the Minister unequivocally accepted prevalence of corruption, inaction on the part of BSOs left them with the Hobson’s choice- go ahead with promotion of a select few.
“We have been discussing this issue since last May and process has been defined which to the extent I know is in the last stage. Some officials have not submitted their confidential report so it has been decided that they should not be deprived of benefits,” said Roy.
Roy added that the department should go ahead with the promotion of those officials who have complied with the order of asset disclosure and make moves in the direction of awarding promotion in January preferably by January 26 as a token of gift to those awaiting promotion since Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar.
The department launched initiative afresh on Tuesday at a workshop on National Food Security Act (NFSA) and distributed a copy of circular of the department of Personnel,
Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasha to seek compliance with asset disclosure provision to continue with promotion of BSOs and Marketing Officers. The figure was nil by March 31, 2015 and in over six months it barely crossed double digit mark.
“No one submitted their asset details by March 31. I would request you to furnish those details to the department so that we can fulfill the long pending demands of promotion,” maintained Secretary, Food and Civil Supplies, Vinay Kumar Choubey.
The Minister was vocal about impact of corruption on the implementation of NFSA in the State and was categorical about the negative approach of vested interests at the lower level of the department’s hierarchy to the Centrally sponsored scheme to end hunger in the country. Roy cautioned the officials not to take this scheme casually and be ready to face the music if things don’t go as envisaged by the Union government.
“This is a central government scheme and a major part is coming from the centre as food grains. If we do not succeed and if there is any deficiency in the scheme, the Centre might institute investigation at their level. Today we are inquiring at department level but it could happen the central government might institute inquiry if it receives too many complaints,” Roy told the BSOs and MOs present in the workshop.
The department had sought details of grain collection, distribution and list of beneficiaries in each district from the supply officers to discover corruption at lower level that threatens to derail the mammoth scheme which made a delayed in Jharkhand. The department is conducting scrutiny of details obtained from districts to find corruption and expose corrupt officials in the supply chain.
Meanwhile, the department has decided to purge the list of beneficiaries and remove around 1.40-lakh illegal entries into the list. Choubey added that the fake ration cards which are equal in number of illegal entries would be cancelled before the end of the month.