Bihar IAS IPS officers to declare assets within 11 days

Their deadline now days away, Bihar’s IAS and IPS officers are responding rapidly to an order to declare their assets in public.
In a move that is a first by any state in the country, Bihar’s General Administration Department (GAD) has asked all government employees — from Chief Secretary to clerk, with only peons kept out— to make a signed declaration of their movable and immovable assets to the state government by February 28, failing which their salary for that month will be withheld.

The employees have to declare not only their own assets but also those owned by their spouses and dependants. The format has been prepared in a manner as complete as possible, making sure an employee “cannot hide anything”, officials said.

The Chief Minister has set the example and been followed by 29 ministers who have declared their assets, which have since been made public on the Bihar government website. MLAs and MLCs have been following, and so have IAS and IPS officers.

“Most of the IAS, IPS and Bihar administrative service officials have already declared their assets with the GAD, Home Department and other departments,” said Deepak Kumar, principal secretary, GAD. He has not checked individual details and could not specify whether the Chief Secretary and DGP are among those who have declared their assets.

IAS and IPS officers already need to declare their immovable assets through Annual Property Return (APR) by January 31 every year, but this is the first time any state has made it mandatory to declare movable assets too. “These are uniform guidelines with no exception,” the principal secretary said, adding that the government is firm about the deadline and withholding pay for non-compliance.

All information will be put up on the state government website. As of now, the declarations of the Chief Minister and the 29 ministers are posted on the site but the details submitted by the IAS and IPS officers are yet to be uploaded.

The GAD secretary said the data would require 500 GB of memory. The state has over five lakh government employees including three lakh doctors, engineers and teachers, besides 250 IAS and IPS officers serving in the state.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said: “In an all-out war against corruption, we want transparency. By March, details all employees’ assets could be made public.” Officials said the exercise will be completed by the end of March.

The government has prepared a format based on that of the Election Commission with some additions. “The form has to be signed. As they are government employees, we can take action against them in case of any wrong information furnished,” said the GAD principal secretary.