SOUTHERN RAILWAY A Bi-Monthly Vigilance E-Bulletin General Manager’s Message I am happy to know that the Vigilance Department has taken initiatives to leverage web technology for disseminating Vigilance related information. Preventive Vigilance forms the bedrock of entire effort of Vigilance mechanism and timely vigilance information shall go a long way in spreading awareness among the officials; the result of the awareness would be continual improvement in adherence to laid down systems and procedures, for all around betterment of quality. The E-Bulletin should aim at achieving better transparency to dispel the unfounded fears coming in the way of effective execution of work. I hope this effort would evoke good involvement of the users, whose participation would make the exercise purposeful and bring about qualitative improvements. I wish this E-bulletin makes continued contribution to effect improvements in the overall organisational work environment leading to better and better effectiveness. Wishing you and your families a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2010. Deepak Krishan General Manager Sensitising the Public about corruption Jan - Feb 2010 What is CVC’s first stage advice? Whenever cases are investigated either by Vigilance or by CBI against Railway Officers, such investigation reports are sent to the CVC (Senior Scale and above) through Railway Board along with the tentative action to be taken by the Disciplinary Authorities. Depending upon the circumstances and facts of each case, CVC advises (a) initiation of criminal and/or Departmental proceedings against the concerned public servants; or (b) issuance of Administrative warning to him/her; or (c) closure of the case. CVC’s advice at this stage is termed as First Stage Advice. What is CVC’s second stage advice? On receipt Enquiry Report from the Enquiry Officer, the General Manager forwards the same to the Railway Board Vigilance along with his views. The Railway Board forwards the same to CVC along with its comments. Advice given by the CVC at this juncture is known as second stage advice. Special drive against touts During November 2009, Vigilance conducted 72 checks on tout activities and 62 touts / anti-social elements were apprehended and prosecuted under section 142 &143 of Railways Act. Tickets to the value of Rs.27212/- were seized and an amount of Rs. 57945/- was collected as fine besides prosecution of the offenders. To sensitise the public about corruption, CVC requires all departments / organisations to prominently display a standard notice board in the reception area of their offices about the message of the commission against bribery and corruption. In addition to the message, the designation, complete address, telephone/fax nos. and E-mail address of the Head of the Department, Chief Vigilance Officer. SP/CBI and the designation & address of the Secretary/CVC also needs to be displayed on the notice board. Complaint Handling Policy In the system where the complaints are handled in a decentralized manner, there is every chance that a complaint with a vigilance overtone may not be forwarded to the CVO, due to a lack of appreciation or for other bonafide reasons. Therefore, CVC has observed that a ‘Complaint Handling Policy’ is to be laid down in all organisations/departments for receipt, handling and processing of all types of complaints/grievances from the public, contractors, vendors, suppliers etc. As per this policy, any complaint/grievance received in the organisation/ department by any functionary containing any element of alleged corruption, malpractices or misconduct etc., should necessarily be sent to the CVO of the organisation for scrutiny and action. Calamity is the test of integrity. - Samuel Richardson No water in Omana’s Coach In a Chapter “Omana’s Journey” in NCERT text book of “Environmental Studies” for Class IV , a small girl writes about her experience of train journey in her diary. “I went to brush my teeth, but there was no water in the bathroom…” To make it worse, one of the questions as a part of exercise at the end of the Chapter was “Why do you think there was no water in the bathroom of the train? Discuss. It hurts all of us that today Indian Railways is not able to make water available for a child in a running train. Increasing responsibility also results in greater accountability. We have to rise to the expectations of all our stakeholders to ensure that the “bathroom of Omana’s coach” does not run dry. - Excerpts from the farewell article by Shri ShriPrakash, MT, in irts.org. Honor your commitments with integrity. - Les Brown SOUTHERN RAILWAY A Bi-Monthly Vigilance E-Bulletin Nuggets Written statement of defence in Major Penalty charge sheets Copies of listed relied upon documents (RUDs) are required to be attached along with the charge sheet. When it is not possible these words should be scored out in Para 1 of charge sheet. Permission is required to be given to CO (charged official) to inspect the originals of RUDs before preparation of written statement of defence to be submitted within 10 days of delivery of the charge sheet / within 10 days after completion of inspection of documents. This is the first opportunity given by the DA to CO for submission of his/her case. Hence the CO should, very carefully, prepare written statement covering all points and submit it to DA in submissive wordings. If the CO requests for personal hearing in his/her written statement of defence the same is required to be given by the DA and then take decision. The following aspects are to be borne in mind by the DA before taking decision:(1) Consider written statement of defence and decide whether the inquiry should be proceeded. (2) If decided to proceed with the inquiry, DA itself can inquire into such of the articles of charge as are not admitted or appoint Inquiring Authority (IA). (Appointing IA will be good in the interest of natural justice). (3) When all charges are admitted by CO the DA should prepare speaking order and impose penalty after taking any further evidences as felt necessary in the interest of justice. (4) In case the CO has partly or fully admitted the charges the DA should specifically decide whether further evidences on such charges are required and if required then only entrust the IA to inquire into those charges. Inquiry work can be entrusted to IA on partly denied charges. (5) If the DA, after consideration of the written statement of defence, is of the opinion that the imposition of a major penalty is not necessary, it may drop the proceedings already initiated by it for imposition of major penalty, without prejudice to its right to impose any of the minor penalties (not requiring conduct of inquiry) and pass order imposing such penalty and it will not be necessary to give the railway servant any further opportunity of making representation before the penalty is imposed. (6) In absence of any written statement of defence, the DAR inquiry must be held. Conduct Rules Gifts -- SubSub-rule 13 of RSC Rules, 1966 No railway servant shall accept or permit any member of his family to accept any gift. The expression gift shall include free transport, boarding, lodging or other services or advantage provided by any person having official dealings with the government servant. A railway servant shall avoid accepting lavish hospitality or frequent hospitality from any individual, commercial firms, organisation, etc. having official dealings with him. A railway servant may accept gifts from his near relatives or his personal friends having no official dealings with him on occasions like weddings, anniversaries, funerals or religious functions in conformity with the prevailing religious and social practices. Railway servant should make a report if the value of such gifts exceeds Rs.7000/- …. Group ‘A’ Railway servant; Rs.4000/- …. Group ‘B’ Railway servant Rs.2000/- …. Group ‘C’ Railway servant; Rs.1000/- …. Group ‘D’ Railway servant In any other case, the railway servant shall not accept any gift without the sanction of the government if the value exceeds: Rs.1500/- …. Group ‘A’ & ‘B’ & Rs. 500/- …. Group ‘C’ & ‘D’ Receipt of presents by railway servant at the time of their marriage in the form of cash, ornaments, cloths or other articles, other than as consideration for marriage from relatives and personal friends and others will be regulated by the above rules. Making or acceptance of gifts amongst “Near Relatives” which include father, mother, son, daughter requires the approval of the competent authority in terms of sub-rule (5) of Railway Services (Conduct) Rules, 1966. K.K. Sudhakaran, Sr.EDPM / PGT During a preventive check conducted at a PRS terminal in a major industrial city, the special cancellation register was cross checked with the applications. It was found that a passenger had tendered a Tatkal Ticket for cancellation after the departure of the train without knowing the fact that refund is not permissible on Tatkal tickets. However the check revealed that one ECRC had taken Special Cancellation on the above ticket. The original application form, which was dealt by another ECRC, was removed and replaced with a new form duly altering the date of journey in support of the Special Cancellation. Thus, an amount of Rs.7410/- was misappropriated. The concerned ECRC has been suspended and DAR action is being initiated. In one Case, the Ballast sample was collected for testing the quality even before the stacking of ballast. Such a practice will lead to confusion, as to what extant the sample results will affect the quality/payment of collected Ballast. The proper stack numbers were to be assigned, measured before the representative sample is drawn as this will facilitate pinpointing of the culprit stack(s) as which should be rejected. But for random purposes, if during supply, sample was taken that can help to regulate the quality. This should be over and above the stipulated mandatory number of tests to be done and cannot be construed as a proper test required for passing the Ballast stack for payment. In this subject the concerned official and officer were taken up in DAR proceedings. In a preventive check conducted at a Stores depot, it was noticed that a safety category item was supplied with forged inspection stamp. The item has to be inspected by RDSO before supplying to the consignee. The firm presented the items for RDSO inspection and obtained inspection certificate. The items were, then dispatched by rail to the consignee but never reached the consignee. When the firm came to know that the consignment has not reached the consignee, they supplied another un-inspected lot by affixing an inspection stamp similar to the one that was available on the inspection certificate along with the inspection certificate pertaining to inspected lot. This became possible only because, the inspection certificate did not contain the batch number or date of manufacture of item inspected. The system improvement of including date of manufacture and batch /identification number of the items inspected in the inspection certificate is suggested to Railway Board apart from appropriate action against the firm. SOUTHERN RAILWAY A Bi-Monthly Vigilance E-Bulletin Colourful Corruption White corruption Role of Teachers in fighting corruption Misuse funds, by exaggerating salaries and (inventing) costs, without justification. India is today one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption pervades every aspect of our life. Starting with political corruption, we are all caught in a vicious cycle of bureaucratic corruption, business corruption, corruption in NGOs and criminalisation of politics. The education sector is also totally affected by corruption in our country today. Black corruption Starting with the admission to the kindergarten schools, right up through every stage in education many key aspect of education are infected with corruption. The exam system is also riddled with corruption and leakage of exam papers is a prevalent phenomenon. The introduction of self financing colleges has in turn brought a totally different approach to education where education has based mere consumer and corruption based. Red corruption The importance and the influence of the teachers in shaping characters are well known. It is to be pointed out how values are shaped by our parents, our religion, our peers and above all our primary school teachers. If we want to tackle corruption we will have to encourage in people the value of integrity and dedication to truth and make them realise that greed is not good. The teachers, especially the primary school teachers who interact with the students at very young age are in an important position to influence values. Straight forward, simply don't pay for contracted services, materials or equipment. The issue of the teachers’ role in fighting corruption therefore can be looked from two angles. The first is the individual angle of the teacher himself. The teacher himself must be honest and must have a feeling that in his role as a guru, he must become a role model and must walk his talk. The second angle of the teacher’s role in fighting corruption is to see to what extent he can mobilise the students as a community in fighting corruption. There is a need for introducing moral instruction classes so that students are forced to think in terms of values and the need for integrity. Value based education is an another area, in which teachers can play a role in inculcating the values and for this, concerted efforts has to be made by not only individual teachers but also collectively by the teaching community so that teaching of values become part of education at every stage. The idea of encouraging groups of students at least to observe certain basic codes of conduct and introducing a code of honour and self discipline can be a starting point. Every teacher to the extent possible can try to form such groups among the students so that at least the issues of integrity are not merely discussed and described upon and also practiced. The students can also be encouraged to become whistle blowers and help in fighting corruption. The teachers should constantly try to inculcate the values in students not by too much of preaching or articulation but by their action at every stage. Action speaks much louder than words. The extent to which the teachers can succeed fighting corruption ultimately will depend upon their commitment and the persistence with which they operate. - Excerpts from the article by Shri N. Vittal, former CVC. Re-allocate or transfer of money under threat. Not always the person himself is to blame. Orange corruption Transfer funds to own bank accounts, direct or via friends or companies. To supply counterfeit and low quality products and shift the ‘savings’ to managers and decision makers. Yellow corruption Also called "commission", rather innocent, but can easily slip into the Red C-bug. Purple corruption Green corruption Deliver service to friends or institutes without asking payment. Brown corruption Similar to Purple corruption, but now done by the beneficiaries of the service, high in number, so the effect is large. Tom is applying for a job as a signalman for the local railroad..... ...and is told to meet the inspector at the signal box. The inspector decides to give Tom a pop quiz, asking: "What would you do if you realized that two trains were heading towards each other on the same track?" Tom says: "I would switch one train to another track." "What if the lever broke?" asks the inspector. "Then I'd run down to the tracks and use the manual lever down there", answers Tom. "What if that had been struck by lightning?" challenges the inspector. "Then," Tom continued, "I'd run back up here and use the phone to call the next signal box." "What if the phone was busy?" "In that case," Tom argued, "I'd run to the street level and use the public phone near the station". "What if that had been vandalized?" "Oh well," said Tom, "in that case I would run into town and get my Uncle Leo". This puzzled the inspector, so he asked, "Why would you do that?" "Because he's never seen a train crash." Try not to become a person of success but rather a person of value - Albert Einstein SOUTHERN RAILWAY A Bi-Monthly Vigilance E-Bulletin Inspiring Anecdote… CVC has issued a Circular (No.007/CRD/008 dated 15.2.08) detailing advisory check points to know the difference between PC made of “Genuine Parts” and that made of “Counterfeit Parts”. The gist of the circular is as furnished below: Lal Bahadur Shastri was the second Prime Minister of India, after India gained independence. Although his physical stature was small, he was the man of great courage, will, and integrity. Because of his great qualities he was and is a great inspiration. CPU The following story shows the integrity of the great man. Rarely to be seen in today’s world. Information as seen in ‘My Computer’ -‘System Properties’ can be deceptive. Buyers should therefore, use various tool / utilities like the ‘CPU-Z’ Utility or the ‘sSpecNo.’ for ascertaining the real parameters of the CPU. Utilities like CPU-Z are available free on the web. Monitors While he was the Prime Minister of India his son approached him with great joy and enthusiasm. The son said, "Father today I have received and appointment letter from this big company and they are offering me huge salary." Lal Bahadur Shastri had a close look at the appointment letter. There was a smile on his face and he said, "You have not received the appointment letter on your own merit." He continued, "Nobody would offer you such appointment with such handsome salary. The only reason for the letter is that you are the son of the Prime Minister of India." Lalbahdur Shastri asked his son to deny the proposal as it would mean the acceptance of bribe from a huge company. While ‘Genuine’ Picture Tubes have all mandatory Certifications, ‘Counterfeit’ Picture Tubes would not have these certifications. Certification gives an assurance of Reliability. This story stands apart when in today’s newspapers, news channels we frequently listen and read the stories of government officials small to big doing just the opposite. Hard Disk There is No border or Refurbished label on genuine new HDD. In addition to this, buyers may also use HDTUNE_210 Utility. This utility shall return Hard Disk Manufacturers’ Serial no. and Date of manufacturing of the Hard Disk. Operating System Purchasers should check the IT Hardware supplied (randomly selected IT Hardware) for Certificate of Authenticity (COA) pasted on the PC for product serial number and OEM’s / Supplier’s name to be printed on it. Microsoft provides an inbuilt tool to diagnose the “Genuineness of its Operating System”. One could go to ‘My Documents’, and ‘Help’, from where one shall get step by step instructions to find out whether the windows installed is genuine. Cartoon Corner Low Quality Memory Module Memory chips are remarked or downgraded wafers are plastic packed under unknown brands or remarked with names of well known brands. It is better to go in for proven reputed brands. Fraudulently Marked SMPS In power supplies, wrong marking of the wattage is done. The power supplies do not carry all required certifications. Counterfeited Consumables Counterfeited consumables such as printer cartridges etc are used which are refilled with ink of poor quality leading to poor performance and clogging, smudging in printers etc. It is advisable to buy consumables from OEM authorized suppliers or distributors to ensure quality and longevity of the printer equipment. For full contents of CVC circular, please visit http://cvc.nic.in The easiest thing to get, but the most A person is not given integrity. It results difficult thing to get rid of is a bad from the relentless pursuit of honesty at reputation. all times. Please mail your suggestions / feedback to [email protected]