How Bureaucrats Hoodwink the Government and the Public

Dear Brigadier Kamboj,
I think we soldiers are paying for the sin of being naïve and straight forward. Using he RTI Act, I have discovered that most civilian government servants manage to increase their salaries by 10 to 20% by a simple expedient– monetary awards. I had seen this happening in RAW. The IB must be doing the same thing, as well as most para military forces. The only people who do not get awards for doing routine jobs are soldiers.
I had filed an RTI application on 15/6/09 with CBI, asking for details of monetary awards given to their personnel during the last 8 years. The results were startling. In fact, Outlook did a story on this, which is given in the link below. I am also attaching some examples, as a sample. There are similar cases in the hundred odd offices of the CBI all over the country.

The RTI application asked for information in respect of the monetary awards given to CBI personnel during the period 01/01/2001 to 31/12/2008. Shri S.K.Palsania, Asstt. Inspr. Genl. of Police transferred the application under Section 6(3) of the RTI Act to ‘All Heads of Branches/CPIOs of CBI (Delhi & outside Delhi).

During the last six months, I have received letters from various branches of the CBI all over the country. Some have given the information while others have stated that it is Nil. The documents run into several thousand pages. I have not had time to read all of it. However, the important point is that CBI personnel are being given monetary awards for routine work, such as doing good work during visits of senior officers, driving a vehicle, shifting furniture, cleaning offices, guard duties and so on. The awards range from a few hundred rupees to several thousand rupees. In many cases, more than one award has been given on the same date, to the same person, by the same officer, perhaps because of the monetary limits imposed. Even officers of the rank of SPs are given such awards.

The awards were being paid out of Major Head 2055, Police 01-CBI, 01.00.01 ‘Salaries’, up to 2006. From 2007 they are being paid out of Major Head 2055, Police 00.001-Crl Inv. & Vig., 01-CBI, 01.00.05-sub head ‘Rewards’. As a result, most CBI personnel are able to earn between 10 to 20 percent above their salaries. In real terms, each man gets the salary of one or two grades higher than the one in which he is placed. This is a mockery of the exercise of fixing salaries in accordance with the recommendations of the Pay Commissions.

It is relevant that Armed Forces personnel do not get any monetary awards, even during if they are killed or wounded in operations, unless they earn a gallantry award, which very few get (less than one in thousand).

Major Cases
During search carried out at various houses of Shri A.P. Singh, ex Chief Secretary of UP in 2005, Rs 38 lakhs was recovered. 41 persons from CBI took part in the raids. They were all given monetary awards ranging from 500 to 6000. Vide CBI office order dated 4/1/2008, 20 officers of the rank of Addl SP/Sr. PP and DySP/PP were sanctioned monetary awards ranging from 2000 to 3500. Some names occur three times in the list. Shri SR Majumdar, Addl SP, Kolkata and PV Ramakrishna Rao, PP, Bhubaneshwar got three awards totalling 8500. (Pay scale of Addl SP/Sr PP was 10,000-352-15,200 and of DySP/PP was 8,000-275-13,500). The Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency in Chennai was set up to investigate the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The 13 persons got 158 awards in 2001. In other words, each person was given over 10 monetary awards, in one year.

I am not sure if the Finance Minister or the CAG is aware of this systematic loot. Perhaps other government departments also do it, so nobody finds it odd. If this is so, why should we not have this in the Armed Forces? If an SP or DIG can sanction monetary awards, why should the CO or the Brigade Commander not have similar powers?
Regards,
Maj Gen VK Singh
cbi: profligacy-Grease On The Lens: The CBI’s arbitrary ‘rewards’ to its own is wastage of public funds by Saikat Datta
Awards dished out to CBI personnel doing routine official work