IAS wary of declaring its officers’ assets

When it comes to transparency, the country's elite class, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), has shied away from disclosing information about their assets.

Updated on: Nov 7, 2010, 23:16:19 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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When it comes to transparency, the country's elite class, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), has shied away from disclosing information about their assets. However, lesser mortals such as the Indian Forests Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) have no problems with the disclosure.

The government had recently asked the three services — IAS, IFS and IPS — whether they would want to reveal assets of its officials under the Right To Information Act.

Although the IAS officers failed to respond even after four months, IPS and IFS officers agreed to the idea.

The IPS and IFS were prompt with their agreement, but the IAS failed to submit its opinion, despite reminders.

“Our officers have nothing to hide,” said a former office-bearer of the IFS Officers’ Association in Delhi. “We want that people should know how much we earn as compared to other services even though we all clear the same (civil service) examination.”

The question came after Supreme Court judges and Union council of ministers agreed to divulge their assets, and the Central Information Commission wanted to know about the services’ opinion.

Although it is among the most powerful services in the country's administrative network — over 90% of secretary levels posts in the central government are with the IAS officers — the IAS is reluctant on transparency, especially about information of personal kind.

The IAS officers’ association said it was not against transparency, but wanted to adopt a more democratic process to adopt a key change. Therefore, the association has sought views of all state-level associations, unlike the national bodies for other two services, which decided at their own level.

Though the information sought is already with the government, the law says such information can be disclosed only after the officials concerned consent to make it public.

Until now, only select IAS officers have permitted disclosure of their assets.

Even retired IAS officers who were re-employed, were reluctant to allow public’s assess to information about their assets. None of the retired IAS officers in the CIC, and the Election Commission, agreed to put their assets on the commissions’ websites saying “no government rule prescribes such declaration”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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