PATNA: In a first in the country, the Nitish Kumar government of Bihar has made it mandatory for all-India service officers serving under it as well as state cadre personnel to declare all their assets.
All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968 requires IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service officials, among others, to declare only their immoveable assets by January 31 every year. However, a Bihar government s general administration department (GAD) circular on Monday asked these officials to furnish details of their moveable properties as well by February 28.
The government is serious about transparency. If the deadline is not met, the defaulter’s salary for the month of February would not be released, GAD principal secretary Deepak Kumar told TOI on Tuesday.
The government move comes close on the heels of two IAS officers, Kuldip Narayan and Balamurugan D, making a bold initiative to declare their moveable possessions — every belonging worth more than Rs 10,000 — last week. The 2005-batch bureaucrats, posted as DMs of Saran and Gopalganj respectively, also uploaded the details on their district s official website.
The GAD soon thereafter directed all the state-cadre personnel, excluding grade IV employees, to declare their moveable and immoveable assets. On Monday, it came out with a circular seeking a similar declaration from all-India service officers.
Terming the move as a first in the country, GAD principal secretary Kumar said states like Rajasthan have sent queries if this is not contrary to rules. We conveyed to them that the directive does not violate service rules, he told TOI.
IAS, IPS officers to submit details to GAD
A Bihar government’s general administration department (GAD) circular on Monday asked IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service officials to furnish details of their moveable properties as well by February 28.
The pro forma document for the purpose, different from the earlier one that the IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service officials used to fill up as per their service rules, asks for details about deposits in banks, financial institutions and non-banking financial companies; bonds, debentures and shares; motor vehicles, jewellery, house and agricultural and non-agricultural land, among other things.
While the IAS and IPS officers have to submit these details to GAD and the state home department respectively, the forest officials have to furnish the same to the forest department. The state employees have been asked to furnish the details to their controlling authorities who will forward the same to their appointing authorities.
Observers said it would be interesting to know the worth of many bureaucrats if, of course, they furnish the same honestly. Though no Bihar official has been assessed by taxmen to be worth Rs 360 crore like the Madhya Pradesh-cadre IAS couple Arvind and Tinu Joshi, raids on a few of them in the past revealed ill-gotten wealth worth tens of crores.
Read more: In a first, state seeks to know every official’s exact worth – The Times of India