Dilli Ka Babu: Babus assets in the dark

Babus are rather reluctant when it comes to submitting details of their immovable assets to the government even if it is a mandatory requirement. All civil services officers have to submit immovable property returns (IPRs) of a year by January-end of the following year, failing which their promotion and empanelment can be denied. The officials are also required to give details of their assets and liabilities to the government.

A look at the number of babus who have failed to declare asset details, every year, reveals that this is one rule they’d be happy to ignore! This year, 1,856 IAS officers have not submitted details of their fixed assets for 2016. The Uttar Pradesh cadre has 255 defaulters, the highest number, followed by 153 from Rajasthan, 118 from Madhya Pradesh, 109 from West Bengal and 104 from Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre.

The number of defaulters seems to grow every year. This year’s figure is up from 1,527 who have not submitted their IPRs for 2015. This should worry the department of personnel and training (DoPT), which comes directly under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charge!

Babus belief turns bitter
The conviction of former coal secretary H.C. Gupta in the “coal scam” cases is that rare occasion when a secretary-level bureaucrat has been successfully prosecuted, along with two others. The other bureaucrats are then joint secretary in the coal ministry K.S. Kropha and then director, coal allocation-I section of the ministry, K.C. Samaria.

Though the babus have been granted bail to enable them to file appeals in the Delhi high court, there is an air of unease in babudom as everyone ponders the fallout of the conviction. For many, it had become a test case to decide to what extent a babu should take the rap for taking decisions on competing commercial interests. Many have held that the coal block and 2G spectrum allocation cases are prime instances where netas have escaped by pinning the blame on the officials.

The fear among babus also stems from the widely-held belief that Gupta was among the “clean” ones, and has been cornered on technical grounds. Last year, the Indian Administrative Service Association and many senior IAS officers openly vouched for Gupta’s honesty. But that belief is now, we are told, turning into bitterness.

Sadakant loses two depts in U.P.
The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is still in the process of settling down, despite repeated reshuffling of officials. Last week’s reshuffle saw the transfer of 74 IAS officers, and the appointment of Sashi Prakash Goel as principal secretary to the chief minister. The position of state chief secretary is still up for grabs, with the Prime Minister’s Office and Yogi failing to agree on a choice.

However, the recent reshuffle also saw senior bureaucrat Sadakant, being divested of the charge of additional chief secretary, housing and urban planning and is only left with the public works department. This, sources say, practically takes him out of the race for chief secretary.

What’s stymied his chance is that a CBI inquiry into cases pertaining to the official during an earlier stint at the Centre has been revived. The buzz is that the probe will be pushed at a faster clip, and possibly not for a clean chit. Taking away two departments from the 1983-batch IAS officer is a sign that his wings have been clipped.