Context: Recently, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) has come up with new initiatives for good and vigilant governance on the last day of the Vigilance Awareness Week 2020.
Key Points

• The Central Vigilance Commission observed the Vigilance Awareness Week from 27th October to 2nd November 2020 with the theme “Satark Bharat, Samriddh Bharat” (Vigilant India, Prosperous India).
• Aim- To encourage all stakeholders to collectively participate in the preventive vigilance measures and fight against corruption, raise public awareness regarding the existence and gravity of and the threat posed by corruption.
• In view of this, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) has come up with new initiatives for good and vigilant governance.

Initiatives launched for better governance

• “Ideas Box on Good Governance Practices in a Pandemic” has been launched and operationalised both on the DARPG as well as on the MyGov platform.
• This will crowdsource ideas related to good governance.
• Social media tweets on the “Best Practices in e-governance” have been launched.
• Round table discussion on “Satark Bharat, Samriddh Bharat” (Vigilant India, Prosperous India) was held.
• The round table conference was held to focus on key issues of preventive vigilance in the pursuit of “Naitik Bharat” which includes training in ethics of public service, social audit of ethical practices, development of measurable metrics for corruption and disproportionately high impact corruption has on governance.

Initiatives for prevention & curbing corruption

• Amendments in the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 intends to enhance transparency and accountability of government.
• Introduction of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas.
• Initiatives like Pragati portal, Umang portal, Public Finance Management System, Promotion of Citizen Charter etc are welcome steps by the government.
• Strengthening of the 2005 Right to Information (RTI) Act and scaled up disposal of cases by the Central Information Commission (CIC).
• Focus on e-governance and other government portals like mygov etc.
• Institutions that help in curbing are- Supreme Court, CBI, CVC, the office of CAG etc.
• Other Legal Frameworks- Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002, Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2016, etc.

Challenges

• High pending cases: RTI Act is working under its capacity due to lack of manpower resulting in pilling up of cases.
• Lack of awareness: Still approx 25% of the population is illiterate. It acts as a hurdle to involve people in administrative functions and to be aware of their rights.
• Lack of autonomy and resources: Various agencies involved in curbing the corruption lack autonomy and resources and political interference makes them highly questionable.
• Non-effective implementation of Citizen charters and responsiveness w.r.t. Grievance redressal requests.
• Lack of cooperation from the higher officials as well as the subordinates.

Road Ahead

• Strengthening PMLA in order to make investigating agencies much more powerful and autonomous.
• Regular training for behavioural change by developing a moral and ethical attitude among officials, along with Standard operating procedure w.r.t. functioning of offices.
• Robust complaint mechanism both internal & external and timely action.
• Special judicial mechanism to deal with cases related to corruption in a time-bound manner.
• Strengthening the whistleblower protection act and providing due protection to the activist
• Right based approach. right to public service will empower citizens and will make officials accountable and responsible.

Additional Information
About Central Vigilance Commission

• It is an independent body which is only responsible to the Parliament.
• It is the apex vigilance institution monitoring all vigilance activity under the Central Government and advising various authorities in Central Government organisations in planning, executing, reviewing and reforming their vigilance work.
• It was set up by the Government in February 1964 on the recommendations of the Committee on Prevention of Corruption, headed by K Santhanam.
• The Parliament enacted the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003 conferring statutory status on the CVC.

Composition

• It is a multi-member commission consisting of a Central Vigilance Commissioner (Chairperson) and not more than 2 Vigilance Commissioners (members).
• They are appointed by the President on the recommendations of a Committee consisting of the Prime Minister (Chairperson), the Minister of Home Affairs (Member) and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of the People (Member).

Tenure: The term of office of the Central Vigilance Commissioner and the Vigilance Commissioners is 4 years from the date on which they enter their office or till they attain the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier.