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| Summary on retired Vigilance Commissioner R. C. Samal's report on Corruption in AP State administration |
| (Summary is prepared by P.S. Sundaram, Former Editor, The New Indian Express & Managing Editor, Media India) |
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| If what the just–retried Vigilance Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Ramachandra Samal, says is proof positive, the administration in the Congress Party–ruled State is caught in the vortex of corruption, favouritism, incompetence and mal–administration. |
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| In a quite revealing 56–pages report on the state of an “all round deterioration in the governance” in Andhra Pradesh, Samal, himself an officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the country’s topmost civil service, until his retirement early September, has accused “three” members of the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy cabinet (even named one of them, the Home Minister, K. Jana Reddy) and a score of IAS, Indian Police Service (IPS), and Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers of being part of the “rapidly degenerating” administrative system. The IPS officers include a former Director General of police, Swaranjit Sen. |
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| The report maintained that while these all–India Civil Services officers were indulging in “systematic and unchecked loot” of the state and some of them even turned land–grabbers, no less than the Chief Minister’s office (CMO), the Home Minister and the Chief Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh government (J. Harinarayana), the topmost civil servant of a state, were harboring and protecting them. |
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| Mr. Samal said he wanted to place the entire report on the Vigilance Commissioner’s website but the chief Secretary had come in the way. Therefore, he chose to release the same to the media which flashed the stunning details of the individual officers’ resort to malpractices for personal gain. While the path he chose to expose the rotting system of administration and even naming the individual officers, not while heading the Vigilance Commission but after retirement, is debatable, it did send shock waves across the several hundred IAS, IPS and IFS officers in service in general and the ruling Congress Party in particular. |
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| And, this comes at a time when, with the scheduled Indian Parliament and the State Assembly Polls a year–and–a –half away, the country is agog with the talk of early Parliamentary elections over the ongoing controversial issue of nuclear agreement with USA. Pre–Poll surveys by media in recent weeks have already given a poor rating for the congress Party in South India including Andhra Pradesh. Chips are down for the Congress in the State, as of now, for reasons other than the nuclear issue, such as, mal–functioning of the government, rising prices, mounting corruption, and farmers problems. |
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| The report of Samal stated that several state government departments, including irrigation, agriculture, transport, police, revenue, social welfare, Panchayat Raj and urban and rural development had turned into dens of corruption and “ the dismal performance of the State’s Anti–Corruption Bureau (ACB) and the Directorate of Vigilance and Enforcement had reached its Zenith.” In fact, these two watchdogs had become defunct and irrelevant. |
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| Titled “My years as Vigilance Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh”, the report of Samal said his observations could be got verified by the Chief Minister through the intelligence agencies. He, on his part, was prepared to give evidence, which he was armed with, about his charges against everyone cited in the report in any court of law. |
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| Samal identified two top level officers – both of IAS – in the CMO who, he said, have been shielding the other corrupt all–India service officers. They are Jannat Hussain, who heads the CMO in the rank of Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, and Bhanu, Secretary to Chief Minister. And, curiously, the Chief Minister had issued an order in the year 2005 that the ACB should not carry out any discreet enquiries against IAS officers without his approval for the same. Dr. Rajasekhar Reddy had, thus, obstructed the system from taking on the unscrupulous officials, he charged. He had written to the Chief Secretary to government to have the Chief Minister’s order rescinded so that the “ corruption and criminal misconduct” of officers that is right now going on could be prevented at once. But it was of no avail as the chief Secretary did not act on it. |
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The IAS, IPS and IFS officers named by Mr. Samal in his report as being those amassing wealth in unlawful ways include: |
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| Department of Public Enterprises Principal Secretary K. Ratna Prabha, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan project director K. Chandramouli, Youth Affairs Principal Secretary S.N. Mohanty and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests S.K. Dass. Other IAS officials named by him include Dayachari, Vara Prasad, K. Devanand, D. R. Garg, D. S. Murthy (retired), V. N. Vishnu, V. K. Agarwal, D. C. Rosaiah (retired) and K. Narayana. The list also includes Bhupal Reddy, K. Biswas, K.S. Rao and IPS officer Gautam Sawang. |
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| The report of Mr. Samal attracted sharp reaction from government circles, including the Chief Minister, who questioned the former Vigilance Commissioner going to the media with his report. “He could have met me and submitted the report to me and I would have done what is necessary,” Dr. Reddy told media Persons. “What he otherwise did was unbecoming of an officer of his level,” he remarked. He strongly defended his ministerial colleagues and officials cited by Samal as corrupt in the absence of a through investigation. Home Minister K. Jana Reddy termed Samal “insane”. He said he did intervene in cases of disciplinary actions proposed against petty government employees in “ very petty matters”. They were let off after severe warnings. Some of the officers accused by Samal of corruption and misconduct also described Samal as being “crazy and in a state of unsound mind”. |
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| Mr. V. K. Srinivasan, IAS, who retried sometime ago as Chairman of the Commissionerate of Inquiries, said Samal’s report was “a painful revelation of the Vigilance Commissioner’s frustration with the manner in which the functioning of the Commission has been hampered by non–cooperation from government. Lack of cooperation between the Vigilance Commission and the state government resulted in the corrupt officials finding it easy to get away from punishment and even continue to indulge in their rapacious activities, Mr. Srinivasan remarked. |
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| Download the entire 56 page report here... |
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