As an retired bureaucrat himself, with years of experience in handling sensitive assignments, Vittal has a rare insight into how the steel frame, held together as it is by miles and miles of red tape, functions. He has observed at firsthand the manner in which corruption seeps into the system, taking with it the integrity of once-honest officers. Very early on in his career, he had demonstrated his impatience with cumbersome procedures that only serve to harass or inquiries that end up as exercises in shielding the guilty rather than bringing them to book.

Barely two months into his new job as chief vigilance officer, who isaccountable by law only to Parliament, Vittal is wielding a new broom with panache. The four reforms steps he envisages should go some way in sweeping away many an old cobweb. Vittal realised that officers put in charge of probes are sometimes pressurised by the big daddies within the system to the detriment of the final investigations.

This is why he now suggests that retired government servants with clean service records to their credit be mobilised in conducting such inquiries. Vittal has also, in any case, ordered that reports on all investigations be sent directly to his office, so that he can take direct responsibility for monitoring them and ensuring that they are duly followed up. Another lacuna that he has highlighted is the unconscionably long time taken in such inquiries they often go on until the culprits have left their chairs and are therefore no longer culpable. Since these delays are mainly effected through the practice of freely granting adjournments in these cases, Vittal has rightlyruled that no more than two adjournments will be allowed per case.

There is the larger question of introducing accountability into the administration's day-to-day functioning. As the head of the Public Enterprises Selection Board some years ago, Vittal tried to make the process time-bound and transparent. Today, he wants to do this on a much larger scale so that the various discretionary powers vested with the government are not misused.

Since corruption requires secrecy in order to flourish, Vittal wants to banish the secret ways government does business. Now all departments will be required to set down the decisions they've taken in black and white and, what's more, display them on the notice board. Since it is difficult to wear one's sins on one's sleeves, the process of sinning will thus hopefully be discouraged. There is nothing overly radical in the CVC's suggestions they just amount to tuning the engine of governance. But the fact that it needs to be done indicates how run down it had become overthe years.