No change: PDP-BJP alliance callous to corruption report

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, October 3

The PDP-BJP government has shown the same kind of callousness in taking action against the corrupt government functionaries as the previous state governments.

It hasn’t taken cognisance of a corruption report submitted to it by the state’s anti-graft commission, which had pointed out widespread presence of corruption in its departments, particularly engineering, forests, consumer affairs and public distribution, revenue, power, transport and housing and urban development .

“Shut your eyes to corruption and shield the corrupt seem to be the mantra of this government as well, which it inherited from the previous governments,” said a highly placed official source.

One of the prime themes of this government was that it would reverse all the corrupt practices and provide transparent and accountable governance. The report submitted to the state government by the Vigilance Commission had reported that more than 800 queries related to corruption had been sent to various government departments out of which an abysmal response for only 35 queries was received, the official sources said.

The anti-graft commission had asked the state government to act in all cases, but silence was the response.

The report had pointed out that many corruption cases have remained hanging for years without action. The sources said senior government officials had shown reluctance to act and respond to the queries that the Vigilance Commission had forwarded.

The corruption cases and the reluctance to act against them date back to the successive state governments. The current state government, whose two coalition partners — PDP and BJP —had vowed to fight corruption, has also performed dismally to act against the graft cases even after receiving the report from the anti-graft body.

The failure of the state government is more telling because it has not even taken cognisance of the most comprehensive report of the Vigilance Commission. It did not even acknowledge having received the report, leave alone taking action against the corrupt officials at different levels.