Thursday, November 6, 2014

Are Only Seniors Corrupt?

When I talk of corruption at top level , some readers raise questions about honesty and integrity of juniors.
It is true that dishonest persons are in all scales. But onus of execution of policies, compliance of norms, ensuring honesty and integrity among field functionaries and inculcation of culture among subordinates lies in the hands of executives.
 
If top executives are honest, there is very little possibility and rather no possibility of scale I to III officer even daring and dreaming of indulging in corrupt practice. On the contrary , if junior officer is honest and good performer , he or she cannot dream of forcing seniors executives to follow the right and true path.
 
Culture of honesty flows from top to bottom and not from bottom to top. There are few Khemkas who can sacrifice their life and bear with 43 transfers in 20 years of service. One may remember that when persons like K K Pathak become Deputy Commissioner of a district , all corrupt, thieves, and criminals change their attitude or leave the district. Person like Mr. Pathak had to face 19 transfers in 6 years of IAS service and is normally posted in the most critical and remotest area .
 
Similar is the position of bankers. In public sector banks, use of corrupt practices are rampant not only in lending activities but also in process of promotion, posting and recruitment . Useless and extra ordinary abnormally higher expenses on useless tours , avoidable transfers, purchase of goods and services is very common in public sector banks and this bad culture adversely affect the profitability of banks.
 
In these banks, officers are loyal and flatterer to their bosses for better career and safe career. Culture of flattery and bribery has become the well established culture and it is difficult to dream of reformation in the system as long as top officials change their attitude and approach.
 
AS soon as Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of the country, the culture of performance and that of honesty has started replacing the dirty corrupt culture and that of policy paralysis propagated and promoted  under the tenure of previous PM Mr. Manmohan Singh. Atmosphere of Entire country . has changed and public servants as well as ministers have started performing in better way and in transparent way. Thing will further improve . 
 
In the same way if ED and CMD of banks become dry honest and good performer and if they are selected honestly and as per seniority , the culture of honesty in promotion and posting will move from top to bottom. The system of using the tool of Interview  to promote an bad officer and to reject an good officer in arbitrary way has to be ended in the larger interest of Human workforce in banking industry. An officers who has worked for decades in various branches and in various capacities  cannot be tested in two minute of interview.
 
 There is no doubt that Interview process is the root cause which give rise to flattery and bribery in all offices and which forces performers to indulge in flattery to bosses and neglect work culture . Government has to ponder over this aspect and take bold decision to do away with Interview in all promotion and selection process (excluding recruitment for time being). Seniority based promotion will prove definitely better than so called merit oriented policies . It is because of bitter truth that human being are prone to becoming corrupt as soon as they occupy power and more so when they get absolute power.

It is important to mention here that

A Junior officer in scale I or II  or scale III officer cannot force a General Manager or ED or CMD to sanction a loan proposal of Rs.50.00 crore but a General Manager or even a Chief Manager in scale IV can instruct junior officer on phone to recommend sanction of the loan .

A junior officer cannot pick up a bad officer for promotion from one scale to higher scale in interview ignoring excellent marks in Annual Appraisal Report but RBI officials or ED or CMD can do so when they are part of Interview panel . Top officials can give value to recommendation of VIPS but juniors cannot dream of such discrimination.

Top officials can write off of bad loans if they are bribed by corporate or defaulting borrowers but a junior officer cannot imagine of such write off of bad loans.

Top officials can directly recruit their kith and kin or sons and daughters of their friends and relatives in scale II or scale III rank but a junior officer cannot dream of doing so.

Top officials of the rank of ED or CMD or GM or DGM can transfer an officer of scale I to III or even officers in scale IV or V to most critical place or remotest place if he or she do not obey verbal wrong orders of them. On the contrary ,a junior officer upto the rank of scale III cannot force a GM or DGM to do as per whims or face music of transfer. Junior officers who do not obey wrong order has to face frequent transfers but top officials are not afraid of such transfers once they create good liasoning and develop good relation with ministers, ED or CMD or some other VIP 

Top officials can force inquiry officers or vigilance officers or inspectors to submit report as per their whims and fancies if the accused person is his close friend or relative but a junior officer cannot imagine to alter vigilance or inquiry report if accused is his close friend. Files pertaining to corruption and bad lending of top officials can be closed without action but that of juniors cannot be closed until he build pressure from some top officials.

Officers who sanction loan of a few lac of rupees can be punished if the account goes bad and if does not have backing of some top official. But the top officials who sanction crores and crores of rupees remain unpunished even if it is proved that the loan sanctioned was with bad motives and the process of sanction was due to bribery.

And so on ---------------------------------

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