State set to frame Sexual Harassment (Prevention Act)
Candid CS admits to large scale corruption among bureaucrats
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, December 03 2013: Fifth month into his tenure as the Chief Secretary of the State and PC Lawmkunga was as candid as could be during an exclusive talk with The Sangai Express at his office chamber today, answering a volley of point blank questions.

To a direct query on where he would place the level of corruption amongst the bureaucrats on a scale of 1 to 10, the Chief Secretary said, hazarding a guess and coming to a figure would be wrong but did not mince word in admitting that there is large scale corruption amongst some of the bureaucrats.

"It is difficult to ascertain the actual gravity of the issue," said the Chief Secretary but did not hesitate to admit that corruption amongst the Government officials is an "accepted fact" .

Chief Secretary of the State: PC Lawmkunga

On prodding why no action has been taken up so far against such corrupt officials then, the Chief Secretary replied that actions have been taken up against some senior officials, including IAS officers.

Lawmkunga however declined to disclose the names of the officials.

To a further query on how many officials have been nailed on corruption charges, the Chief Secretary said, "You should have given me some idea on the questions that you wanted to raise, then I could have given you the figure.

I just cannot give the figure off hand" .

Underlining the point that Manipur is not an exception as far as corruption is concerned, Lawmkunga recalled the gradings given by the Transparency International, where countries are graded on the corruption scale.

"If I remember correctly, India ranked 172 in the list of least corrupt Nations," he added.

"There are inbuilt mechanisms in the Government to deal with corrupt officials," he said and on being pointed out that despite this, corruption in the bureaucracy is still rampant, the Chief Secretary said that the anti-corruption cells such as the Vigilance Department has been activated.

"As the Chief Secretary, I am responsible to see that honest persons/officials are protected and not harassed and dishonest officials are exposed and punished according to the law of the land," he asserted.

On political interference, especially in the backdrop of the recent Supreme Court ruling that Government officials should not take oral orders from their political bosses, the Chief Secretary said, "I would not like to make any comparisons, but so far during my four months tenure as the Chief Secretary, I have not been under any political pressure" .

He however admitted that during his 32 years as a civil servant, "I did face some minor political pressure, but I never succumbed to it." There is also no question of serving the interest of the political party in power in Manipur, unlike some other States, he added.

"Though there have been no official cases of sexual harassment in the work place, I have a plan to work out some measures," he said and added that the Vishakha guidelines may be adopted with local adjustment.

Such an endeavour will be taken up in consultation with the Social Welfare Department, he said.

Later in the evening, the Chief Secretary informed The Sangai Express, "I have received a file for implementation of Sexual Harassment (Prevention) Act.

We will work fast on this" .

Lawmkunga also admitted that the Annual Confidential Report can no longer be called 'confidential' as it is the subordinate officials who run from pillar to post to get their ACRs and in such a scenario did not rule out the possibility of some juniors cosying up to their superiors to receive a good ACR.

He however added that ACR has now been replaced by Performance Appraisal Report, where avenues are provided to the subordinate officials to review their performance in case they come under the impression that they have not been given their due.

On his four months stint in office as the Chief Secretary, Lawmkunga said, "No other Chief Secretary would have had such a hectic schedule in the first four months in office as me" and elaborated this by citing the cases of the high profile visit of the 14th Finance Commission team, the visit of a team of the National Human Rights Commission, which questioned why restrictions are placed on meeting Irom Sharmila and the just concluded ten day State level Sangai festival.

"To sum up, the first four months have been satisfying," he said and added that the Government is ready to file a reply to the query of the NHRC on the restrictions placed on meeting Irom Sharmila.

"One noteworthy achievements during my four months is office is clearing the pending promotions of numerous high ranking officials," he said and added that this was achieved after much prodding.

This was possible because of the co-operation extended by the Department of Personnel, he added.

Admitting the inpunctuality of Government employees has been a hindrance, the Chief Secretary said, "I have made it a point to stress on punctuality.

Meetings with subordinate employees have been held at different levels to drive home the importance of punctuality," he said and added that indiscipline and insubordination would not be tolerated at any cost.

On further probing, the Chief Secretary admitted that earlier there were groupism or cliques amongst the high ranking officials but added that this is not seen now since he receives the co-operation of everyone.