Assets of 85,000 Bihar government employees online

Patna, Mar 10 (PTI) Bihar government has so far made available online the assets” details of over 85,000 of the 4.75 lakh government officials, first of its kind in India, official sources said today.
“Details of assets of over 85,000 government officials can now be seen,” state General Administration department sources said and described it as an initiative first of its kind in Bihar to weed out corruption.
“We have also made available online the asset details of 190 IAS officers, 169 IPS officers, 29 IFS officers, 2800 state administrative service officers so far, the sources said.
Though placing the details of all the 4.75 lakh government employees prove to be a herculean task, we expect to continue the process of placing the details on government websites on a war-footing and complete the task by month-end, they said.
“The February salary of only those employees have been disbursed who adhered to the directive of the state government to furnish the assets declaration forms by February 28, mandated by the government,” Principal Secretary of the General Administration Department Dipak Kumar said.
Most of the 4.75 lakh government employees, including IAS and IPS officers in Bihar, had strictly complied with the directives and submitted the declaration forms to their respective Drawing and Disbursing Officers, he said.
Senior officials of the Department said all those employees, who failed to submit their details, would be given an opportunity to clarify their stand.
“We have also sent a proposal to the state government for considering action against the defiant employees, besides five IAS officers who failed to adhere to the deadline of February 28,” the sources said.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister S K Modi, their 28 other ministerial colleagues submitted details of their assets on December 31, 2010.
Several employees” associations had written letters opposing the government”s move to make employees” assets public as it would amount to “invasion into one”s privacy and can pose security problems” but the state government refused to accept such a view.