CMDA to crackdown on corrupt officials, plans to outsource probe officers

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

In a bid to stem corruption in the department, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is planning to appoint inquiry officers for disciplinary cases outside the department, sources said.

This comes in the wake of CMDA dropping charges against officials against whom Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption had suggested disciplinary proceedings.

Some of the cases which resulted in DVAC probe included Manapakam unauthorized construction, T Nagar unauthorized construction, Anna Nagar unauthorized Construstion, cases pertaining to Hotel Shan, a fake non-objection certificate resulting in awarding of completion certificate and cases relating to Choolaimedu unauthorized construction.

Sources said in all the cases DVAC conducted a detailed enquiry and submitted the report to the government which issues a Government Order for disciplinary proceedings against erring officials by CMDA.

Interestingly, none of the officials are punished so far. Sources say the lack of action against those tainted officials is that most of the enquiry is dropped due to procedural lapses which include lack of manpower, availability of vehicles as well as huge work load besides various other petty reasons.

Surprisingly, CMDA has said that such reasons indicated by delinquents will not be acceptable. Inquiry officers in the department dropped charges against the erring officials based on these reasons and henceforth these resons won’t be acceptable, CMDA has said.

Interestingly, CMDA in its authority meeting on September 3, decided to re-examine a case in which charges against senior planner R K Ganeshan and assistant planner S Jayaraman were dropped by the inquiry officer, who said they are not proved beyond doubt. “The inquiry officer failed to take cognizance of the fact that though deviations of the constructions were brought to the notice of the delinquent officials and they failed to act,” the meeting observed.

Sources said this is just the tip of the iceberg. “It would be wise enough if the department re-examines all such cases. This will help in curbing the illegal constructions across the city,” they added.

Interestingly, Madras High Court last year has directed 31 erring officials, including four IAS officers, to file affidavits explaining their inaction when illegal constructions were made during their period. Surprisingly, till now no charges were framed against these officials by the government. Even  non-official members of Monitoring Committee have also repeatedly talked about increasing the accountability of officials besides improving the transparency of the approval process and effective enforcement. It is a wake-up call for CMDA.