STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Setting deadline for submission of Action Taken Report on the corruption related complaints and Regular Departmental Actions (RDAs), pending with Agriculture and Horticulture Departments, the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, Kuldeep Khoda on Friday sought expeditious processing and filing of reply in the Commission within one month.
“Sitting on corruption related cases tantamount to encouraging corrupt practices”, Khoda added.
These directions were issued at a meeting of the Commission, convened to review the progress of the RDAs and complaints forwarded to Agriculture and Horticulture departments by Vigilance Commission and Vigilance Organisation, from time to time, for action.
Expressing discontent for keeping corruption related cases pending for years together without any justifiable reasons, the CVC exhorted upon the officers to speed up the process and ensure that action on every corruption related case is taken within the deadline fixed by the Commission. Underlining need for disposing of the complaints and RDAs in time bound manner, he said timework should be the benchmark of the department for dealing with such matters.
Emphasising on maintaining inter departmental coordination, the CVC asked the officers to get reconciliation of the records, pertaining to corruption complaints and RDAs, with the Vigilance Organization (VO) and State Vigilance Commission (SVC) so that action on pending cases is taken expeditiously. Stressing on adopting E-tendering, E-payments and E-procurement, Khoda said that department should ease norms fixed for getting services and facilities by the farmers, orchardists and other categories associated with agriculture and horticulture activities in order to minimize the human interface and chances of corruption. He asked the officers of the departments to find out ways to eliminate hurdles in service delivery system necessary for checking the menace of corruption. The CVC said that transparency and accountability need to be made more vibrant and effective at all levels of the administration and advised officers to review the progress of complaints on weekly basis to ensure early and effective action against those involved. He said no officer should turn blind eye on corruption cases and asked them to resolve such issues with highest degree of responsibility.
Earlier, the officers of both departments briefed the Commission about the status of complaints and RDAs besides the measures being taken for early disposal of such cases.
Among others, Vigilance Commissioners, Dr R.K Jerath and Gous-ul-Nisa Jeelani, Secretary, Horticulture, Special Secretary, Agriculture Production, Director Horticulture, Jammu, Director, Agriculture Jammu, Deputy Director, HPM, SSP, VO, Joint Director Floriculture, Jammu, Additional Secretary, SVC, Addl. Secretary, Floriculture besides other senior officers of SVC, Agriculture and Floriculture were present in the meeting.
