AMARAVATI: The Andhra Pradesh government is falling back on a 1964 committee report, after shelving the 2020 recommendations of IIM-Ahmedabad, to prepare a specific action plan for rooting out corruption through preventive vigilance in the administration.
While chief secretary Aditya Nath Das issued an order two days ago, asking all departments and other government agencies to prepare a specific action plan related to their jurisdictional offices, AP Vigilance commissioner Veena Ish circulated a three-page note explaining the importance of preventive vigilance, "as recognised in the Santhanam Committee report of 1964."
The endeavour is to prevent corruption and establish an "honest, transparent, efficient and citizen-friendly administration", according to the officials.
Revenue and Panchayat Raj and rural development have been chosen as the 'model departments' to prepare the specific action plan first.
No timelines, however, have been set for preparing the action plans.
According to the Vigilance commissioner, the Santhanam Committee report emphasised that "corruption cannot be eliminated or even significantly reduced unless preventive measures are planned and implemented in a sustained and effective manner."
"Preventive vigilance seeks to prevent the occurrence of corrupt practices by identifying and plugging vulnerable areas through systematic improvements and structural remedies, "Veena Ish noted, citing the observations of the Central Vigilance Commission as well.
In November 2019, the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government commissioned the IIM-A to prepare a report on the measures needed to curb corruption in the administration.
The IIM-A submitted its recommendations in August 2020, observing that the initiatives of the government to curb corruption so far were "local and reactive", without eliminating the root cause.
It suggested, among several other things, that a "whistle-blower policy" be implemented to help prevent malpractices before they grow large.
"Unless the measures are implemented in letter and spirit, fair and transparent governance remains a lip- service," it noted.
The state government, however, immediately shelved the IIM-A report as "it did not match our expectations" and is now going back to 1964 to re-launch the battle on corruption.
In the process, the government is also brushing up its own vigilance manuals to activate preventive vigilance.
A checklist with 20 critical measures, in accordance with the AP Vigilance Manual (volume-1), has now been given to the government departments to be used as the basis for the preventive vigilance action plans.
The critical measures prescribed include establishing a "proper agency" in every department for those with "genuine complaints" to approach for redress and making all information, not treated as secret, freely available to the public to "prevent sale of information".
It's all there in our books but we seldom went by them.
Even the basics like preparing and maintaining a list of officers with doubtful integrity and mounting surveillance on them, as enshrined in the manuals, were ignored," an official in the state Vigilance Commission pointed out.
A comprehensive action plan on preventive vigilance for the state would be prepared based on the departments' plans, he added.
The exercise is expected to take at least a couple of months.
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