The image changer

When the state government decided to confiscate a double-storey house of a retired IAS officer, Sanjiv Kumar Ray in Bhubaneswar, and convert it to a homeopathic clinic, everyone was taken by surprise. 
 

True it came, two months after the Bihar government had initiated a similar step where another IAS officer, SS Verma’s house was turned into a school, but it was still a surprise. The media lapped up the story and the chief minister gained people’s appreciation.
 

In Ray’s case the Special Vigilance Court convicted him on January 25, 2011 on charges of amassing properties disproportionate to his known sources of income. The court sentenced him to three years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh. Ray’s case is not an isolated case. In a similar action, a farmhouse owned by an IAS officer, Ramesh Chandra Behra on the outskirts of Berhampur city, was converted into a Nursery and Horticulture Training Centre, last December.
 

­­­It is obvious that the state government has decided that properties confiscated under the disproportionate assets case “be used for the common man after confiscation”. Odisha, in fact, has been consistently enforcing this policy to bring transparency in administration.
 

Speaking at a recently organised Vigilance Awareness Week in the state capital, the chief minister reiterated his commitment to clean administration, “Our government is working on three parameters – transparency, accountability and development. For last 10 years, we have been working hard to root out corruption.”
 

These actions, however, would not have been possible without a series of administrative innovations ushered in by the Patnaik government. The most important being establishment of the Special Vigilance Courts to handle corruption cases. During his tenure, 12 such courts have been established across the state under the Special Court Act 2006. 
 

Two courts in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack have been empowered to exclusively dispose cases of disproportionate assets of Class I government officers and political leaders. So far, the government has registered cases against 40 IAS officers and 11 cases against seven Indian Police Service (IPS) officers. In 2010-2011 as many as 61 cases ended in conviction.

As part of the reform started in 2006, the administrative machinery has also been overhauled to accommodate new technological innovations like e-governance. 
 

Odisha has also bagged many national awards and accolades for its reforms. It has won the first prize in e-Panchayat Puraskar 2011 (for the best performance utilisation of funds at the panchayat level); e-World Award 2011 for the Dharani Project (for facilitating e-registration of land details); and, the e-Government Jury Award 2010 for the most user friendly RTI website. 
 

As part of empowering women,the state cabinet in 2011 increased women's reservation quota from 33 to 50 per cent in the three-tier Panchayati Raj system. The state government has also supported and promoted women’s self-help groups (SHGs), through launching of programmes such as 'Mission Shakti' during Naveen Patnaik’s first term in office in 2001. From 2001-2006 as many as 35,373 self-help groups were created out of which 24,710 got access to credit. 
 

To further strengthen ‘Mission Shakti' the state has also introduced Targeted Rural Initiative for Poverty Termination and Infrastructure (TRIPTI) scheme in all the 314 blocks of the state. This World Bank-assisted scheme aims at capacity building and employment generation. So far, 46.5 lakh women have become members of 3.87 lakh SHGs. 
 

Impressed with the ongoing reform process in the state, a UK based international donor agency, the Department For International Development (DFID) has expressed willingness to finance the proposed Odisha Modernising Economy, Governance and Administrative Programme (OMEGA) and Odisha Health Sector Plan (OSHP).
 

“During last one decade, a huge mechanism has been created in the state for transparent and effective administration. But more pro-active approach is needed on the part of the government employees. I think strict adherence to citizen charter is the need of the hour,” opines Pramod Patnaik, a former district collector.