Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has mandated that all state ministers and bureaucrats provide information about their personal and family property, which would be made public on the government portal. Simultaneously, he stated that ministers and personnel should not allow their families to interfere with government work. He advised that we must set values through our actions. This, however, is not a new phenomenon. As per government rules, ministers and officials must make information about their assets public.
Governments have always given such counsel to their leadership and personnel. The specifics of these people’s property have also been posted on the official webpage. In practice, however, the opposite is often observed. It’s no secret that a leader’s moveable and immovable assets grow exponentially from one election to the next. Evidence of this can be found in their election affidavit. The same is true for officers. But, if Yogi Adityanath is serious about putting an end to this tendency, it will take more than the goodwill of ministers and bureaucrats to automatically register their property details.
During the previous term, many Yogi government officials were accused of massive corruption. During the Corona phase, there were charges of rigging in the acquisition of medicine and equipment. Even now, many department personnel are not without reproach. In such a case, the Chief Minister should have commanded that the details of their holdings, etc., be recorded for the purpose of resolving these accusations. However, there is no credibility in the system to prevent the corrupt activities of officials and ministers until they are held accountable for amassing enormous holdings. Expecting them to start communicating values through their actions with the help of coaching would be a folly. In reality, corrupt activities are a component of habits.
This is not a habit that can be changed overnight; it must be practiced consistently. In Uttar Pradesh, there is an organization of administrative officers that performs its own analysis and publishes a list of corrupt officials each year. However, no government was seen attempting to take strong action against such officers. Then how can it be guaranteed that the data of the ministers’ and officials’ property supplied by them and their family members is exact? Illicit wealth holders are the first to devise a method to conceal their wealth.
It’s a good thing Yogi Adityanath has ordered his ministers and officers to be model citizens. If the finger is pointed towards corrupt ministers and officials, it is an uncomfortable position for them as well. So the directions he has given for the time being should not be confined to mere ideas or formalities. Measures are needed to obtain reliable information on the assets of government employees. Meanwhile, politicians and officials are members of society, and their unlawful gains should be revealed in front of the whole public. The government’s benevolence resides in making those facts public in the appropriate manner. This will surely boost the Yogi government’s legitimacy.
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