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Should a civil servant be honest? How corruption in offices can be monitored?

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Should a civil servant be honest? How corruption in offices can be monitored?
Ethical Governance is a concept related to good
governance .it requires that Civil servant adhere to the principle of serving others
by setting a high standard of moral conduct. Before come to the point, Let’s us
throw the little light on the history of civil service. Warren hasting laid the
foundation of the Civil service. ‘Charles Cornwallis’ is known as the ‘Father of
Civil service’ in India.Satyendra Tagore, the first Indian civil service officer in 1863.
Nowadays, most of families appoint home servant
to finished\managed their household activities regularly. (cleaning, cooking,
gardening, washing etc.) Now you can imagine how one servant fulfill his/her
duties and responsibilities to the house of the owner. Similarly, Nation is the
Home of Civil servant and no one civil servant can exhibit dishonesty and
misconduct in her/his own house. civil servant is a professional who works for the
government and society at various level.
Through my vision, The Chair and Office of civil servant should be filled with
values such as integrity, honesty, impartiality, morality, ethics.

Example: Mr. Saurabh Kumar, District collector of Dantewada, tribal
dominated Chhattisgarh District. He is helping students of classes XI and XII make
the right career choice and not go down the path of violence. Every Wednesday
he arranged two-hour career counselling session. between 50 and 100 students
asked different questions about his or her interest and field of study, during
Saurabh Kumar and his team takes notes.
Popularly known as “LUNCH WITH COLLECTOR”.
From the above instance one can learn how a civil servant fulfilled his duty
without any excuse. Thus, Civil servant is not merely position but it should be
trustworthy, honest and incorrupt personality.

Today, Indian Civil services are facing a large
number of ethical issues and most of them directly or indirectly, are related to
corruption.
‘Corruption is the Unethical act performed by a person, using power of position

or authority to acquire personal benefits.’

There are multiple reasons for the prevalence of corruption in civil service such as
positions of civil services are used as rewards for political support or swapped for
bribes, lower wages for civil servants compared to those in the private sector,
weak enforcement of law, blackmailing from higher authorities, delays in
clearance of files etc. Ultimately, it affects the quality of service, leads to
improper justice, failure of Genuine Research, lack of faith and trust in
Governments, delay in growth.
Example: Recent case of IAS Pooja Singhal (money laundering case)
2370 cases related to corruption and bribery were registered by the Central
Bureau Investigation against 3730 civil and public servants between 2017 and
2021 in the country.
The question arises in our mind that why
should a civil servant be honest? There are valiant responsibilities on shoulders of
a civil servant. When a person selected as a public servant many expectations
grow in common masses. Because it is the duty of civil servant to work honestly
for the society without any discrimination.
Example: Rashmi V Mahesh, Karnataka Cadre IAS officer, fighting relentlessly
against the corrupt education system. She had conducted investigations into
medical and engineering college’s seats, which were managed by political leaders.
How much do citizens trust as well as depend on civil servant?
Now what will happen if bureaucrats start doing corruption like politicians?
Thus, for citizen’s civil servant is a trustworthy, inspirational, honest and brave
figure.
The biggest disease is corruption. The vaccine is transparency.

To monitor corruption in offices, the fool proof
laws should be made so that there is no room for discretion of politicians and
bureaucrats, The role of the politicians should be minimized, Application of the
evolved policies should be left in the hands of independent commission or
authority in each area of public service, Government can also make undercover
agents to check the honesty of civil servants, professional ethics should be an
integral component in all the training courses, code of ethics for civil servants
based on the recommendation of the 2 nd Administrative Reforms commission.
For instance: Madhya Pradesh government passes a law known as the ‘Public
Service Guarantee act in 2010’-reasonable time limit for delivery of different
government service to the people. Government has launched ‘Mission
Karmayogi’ for civil service.
Yes, Corruption is a big problem in civil
service but it can be eradicate with systematic and right efforts.it is important to
emphasize value based training to all civil servants to ensure probity in public life.
However, the day is not far when corruption will disappear not only from the civil
service but from all sectors of the country.

 

-Mudra Padmashali

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