No asset details, 70,000 Bihar officials could lose salary

Nearly 70,000 officials in Bihar are in trouble for not submitting their assets details to the state government as part of a crackdown on corruption. Their salary for a month is likely to be withheld, officials say.

Nearly 70,000 officials in Bihar are in trouble for not submitting their assets details to the state government as part of a crackdown on corruption. Their salary for a month is likely to be withheld, officials say.

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The deadline to submit assets details ended two days ago.

Deepak Kumar, principal secretary of the general administration department, told IANS that the government has decided to withhold the salary for the month of February of all those officials who have failed to submit their assets details.

He said the majority of officials from the block level office to district headquarters and state secretariat had submitted the information by Monday night.

"The state government will make all the government officials' assets public in the next two to three days and post it on the government official site," Kumar said.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's initiatives to check corruption are showing results.

Nearly 85% of over 4.5 lakh government officials, including Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers in Bihar, had submitted their assets details till Tuesday night.

Nitish Kumar had declared a war against corruption after becoming chief minister for the second consecutive term in November last year. "It is part of Nitish Kumar's efforts to weed out corruption," an official in the Chief Minister's Office said.

Setting an example, the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues had declared their assets Dec 31. The details are posted on the state government's official website.