Taking a cue from the judiciary, two IAS officers and an IPS officer of the UP cadre have disclosed their assets and made it available on the website declareyourassets.blogspot.com.

Those who have disclosed their assets includes UP Additional Cabinet Secretary Vijay Shanker Pandey (Batch 1979), Sunil Kumar (Batch 1987), who is the vice-chairman of the Inland Waterways Authority of India, Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways and Jasvir Singh (Batch 1992), DIG, Training.

The three civil servants have already sent their letters declaring their assets to the Cabinet Secretary of the Central government, K M Chandrashekhar.

In his letter to the cabinet secretary, Pandey has written: “As officers of the Indian Administrative Service, we sincerely believe that there is an urgent need to introduce greater accountability, and transparency in administration and as a first step towards that end, the property return of all the IAS officers should be made public.”    

“It is understood that under the Right to Information Act, pronouncements have been made by the chief information commissioner directing the government to make available the details of the assets declared at the beginning of every year by senior officers, especially All India Service Officers,” read Jasvir’s letter.

Secretary of the state IAS association Sanjay Bhoosreddy has welcomed the move. “We are all for transparency,” he said. He, however, refused to comment whether the association would make a similar move in the future.  

The message displayed on the website reads: “We appeal to all the public servants of our country to declare all their assets in the public domain so that the public or any other agency may scrutinise and examine them anytime. We believe that this will go a long way in promoting probity, accountability and transparency in public life in our country.”

... contd.