Vigilance Meet

Attended a meeting of the Vigilance Study Circle, Kerala at the city office of BPCL at Kundannur. The study circle conducts its meetings often, and sometimes people like me get nominated to attend a program which is as taxing on patience as it is in vain to serve any useful purpose.

The program began with an address by the Chief Vigilance Officer of Cochin Ship Yard who astonished the audience with a suave confession that he does not understand a thing about ships or of building one. It seemed he stopped just short of continuing, “And I don’t care a damn”! So, this man, who doesn’t know anything about how the company earns its money to pay the workers which includes himself, is positioned in such a high point on the ladder to decide if or when his colleagues had gone wrong. Vigilance organizations are mainly concerned with four aspects of malpractice, namely,

a)    Violation of procedure

b)    Illegal gratification

c)    Both (a) and (b)

d)    Illegal gratification but with no violation of procedure (as in government offices)

Those people from the technical community who are burdened with the unenviable task of completion of deadlines in a project know that violation of procedure is one evil they must learn to live with, of course, without any illegal gratification. If such officials like the above vigilance officer lead the watch hounds, how could they even hope to get a sympathetic ear to explain their conduct? It must be repeated here that there is no counter argument to the notion that any illegal gratification must be strictly punished.

The central item on the agenda was a talk given by Shri. P C Cyriac, IAS (Retd) who was the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes in Tamil Nadu and a former collector of Madurai district. I must concede that all of his anecdotes not related to vigilance were interesting and made the talk lively for a few flickering moments! But it soon became apparent from his own words, that he never stood bolt upright against the corrupt. His actions always seemed to be to deny the chances for wrongdoers to take bribe rather than imposing punitive action against the venal. In fact, he cited an example which was unfortunate for his argument. He narrated an innovation he implemented in the tax department of Tamil Nadu. Shop owners were invariably required to submit their account books before the assessing officers for verification while presenting annual statements. Naturally, this was an ideal hunting ground for the corrupt officials to fleece the vendors. And, what did Cyriac do? He put forward a stipulation that people having a turnover of less than Rs. 1 crore (which at that time comprised 90% of the dealers) need not submit their books for verification at the time of presenting statements. The tax department then checked in detail 20% of the people selected at random. He claimed that his exercise resulted in an increase of 50% in the revenue. Of course it might have, but what about the corruption which might invariably have accompanied it? Instead of standing firm against the unscrupulous, he simply sought to avoid the occasion for profiteering by denying an opportunity for the dealer and officer to see face to face. It is definitely true that the officers would have more than made good what they have lost, on the hapless 20% allotted to them for verification!

The food was good, particularly the tea. The most difficult part of decision making was to determine which items should be left on the plate as a matter of good manners. Lunch was also sumptuous, but not of the high caliber expected from the ilk of BPCL. The hosts were generous in supplying a very good ‘Add Gel’ pen too. But the pen was blue, and for me, handling a blue pen is like having a piece of bacon in the hands of a strict vegetarian. The meet ended at 2 pm leaving many people including me wondering why we were invited to a seminar which was not in the least relevant for our work.