Know more about VK Shunglu, a 1962 batch retired IAS who’s given Padma Bhushan

A DAY after the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi ended with much fun-fare in October 2010, the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, appointed a panel to look into the allegations of corruption related to the mega sporting event. The man at the held was former Comptroller and Auditor General and 1962 batch IAS, V K Shunglu. On Friday, the present Modi Sarkar conferred him Padma Bhushan for his exceptional performance in the field of civil service. The only other civil servant who was also given the Padma award this year was…

Senior bureaucrats including CAG Rajiv Mehrishi empty toilet pit in Pune district

Mehrishi (3rd from left; wearing saffron dress)

THE Comptroller and Auditor General of India and former home and finance secretary Rajiv Mehrishi emptied a toilet pit from a twin pit toilet in rural Maharashtra on Thursday morning. He was joined by secretary in the ministry of drinking water and sanitation Parameswaran Iyer who had also done that earlier. This time, senior sanitation officers including additional chief secretaries of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, followed suit to…

What Vinod Rai’s book says about bureaucrats: Pulok Chatterji, Vini Mahajan, TKA Nair, PJ Thomas, Sunil Arora etc.

Rai with wife

1980 batch IAS officer Sunil Arora is an “outstanding officer”.
Former principal secretary to PM TKA Nair was a “priest” in the PMO. 
Former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai’s book “Not Just An Accountant” has a few interesting anecdotes about men who mattered in corridors of power. Here are about 7 of them:

Any guess on UPA ministers, bureaucrats who requested Vinod Rai to drop names from CAG reports?

THIS photo shows former Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Vinod Rai (standing left) with three UPA ministers: P Chidambaram, Pawan Kumar Bansal and SS Palanimanickam (of the DMK). Rai was the then the banking secretary, and he posed for this official photo ahead of one of Chidambaram’s budgets during UPA-I. Bansal and Palanimanickam were then the MoS, Finance, and in hierarchy Rai was junior to all those three ministers. But days before the release of his supposedly tell-all book, “Not Just An Accountant”, speculations have risen about the names of the UPA ministers who had visited his home with a request to…

Meet diplomat Shashi Kant Sharma; how CAG garnered votes of China, Pakistan against US backed candidate

Comptroller and Auditor General of India and former IAS officer of 1976 batch, Shashi Kant Sharma, will now get access for audit of the UN organizations including UN peacekeeping operations, after he was elected on Friday as Member of the United Nations Board of Auditors for a six-year-term. America did not want Indian CAG getting that prestigious berth, and backed Philippines instead. But Sharma personally led the canvassing and impressed the global diplomatic community to vote in favour of India. Sharma managed to woo among others…

Ministries should publish follow-up actions taken on CAG reports: Govt Paper

SHOULD every ministry in its annual report add a chapter giving details about follow-up actions on what Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report said of the ministry? A background paper released by Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances on the occasion of the Civil Services Day said “yes”. “It would be a good practice…

How CAG Vinod Rai is of some help to the UPA government in Court

1972 BATCH retired IAS and Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai might have given sleepless nights to the government umpteen times, but Rai is of some help to the UPA government when its Attorney General GE Vahanwati dismissed an argument in Supreme Court that “loyal” bureaucrats are being appointed as information commissioners. The government’s top law officer referred to Rai’s example when...

Ambani’s Reliance Industries, black gold in KG Basin & 2 ex-bureaucrats

BP CEO Robert Dudley with Mukesh Ambani in Sep 2011

THE Reliance Industries Ltd, the most valued private sector company in India, has said it welcomes any form of audit by Comptroller and Auditor General of India, something the Mukesh Ambani-owned company was not very comfortable about, even a fortnight ago. But here is how two former bureaucrats became the game-changers by rewriting the traditional rules of keeping a safe distance from the high and mighty of the corporate India.

Has CAG Vinod Rai saved his ex-boss Chidambaram by dropping Padma audit?

CAG Vinod Rai

Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai, who took a hawkish stand against the government policies both in 2G spectrum allocations and Commonwealth Games, decided not to enter into the policy turf this time and dropped the move to audit Padma Awards selection. Had Rai, a 1972 batch IAS officer, allowed Director General Audit Central Expenditure (DGACE) Roy S Mathrani to carry on the Padma audit, it would have been embarrassing for home minister P Chidambaram who was Rai’s boss when Chidambaram was finance minister and Rai the banking secretary.

Padma Awards were instituted in the year 1954, but it has become more and more controversial in the recent years. It’s alleged that awards like Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri are at times given to the persons who had helped the ruling party in one way or the other.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee members, particularly of the Congress, grilled Rai on two occasions questioning the CAG’s calculation of the presumptive loss of whopping Rs 1,76,000 crore for not auctioning the 2G spectrum in January 2008.

The home ministry is the nodal ministry to select Padma awardees. Interestingly, Rai’s batch-mate in IAS, and that too from the same Kerala cadre GK Pillai was the home secretary till June, 2011.
Also Read

20 ex-bureaucrats in support of CAG

Vinod Rai's closed door meet in Shimla

Vacancy of Adviser’s post in Brussels

For officers at the rank of deputy secretary and director in government of India, here is a chance to work in Belgian capital Brussels. The government has advertised for filling up the post of Adviser (Industry and Engineering) in Embassy of India, Brussels, under the department of commerce.

The mandatory qualifications include two years of work at the Centre under the Central Staffing Scheme. The officer should have at least “very good” service record and should not be over 54 years of age.

Experiences in bilateral and trade negotiations and exposure to international trade will be added advantages.

Action and Appointments

a) The Centre has accorded its approval for inter-cadre deputation of Manish Kumar Verma, a 2000 batch IAS, from Orissa cadre to Bihar cadre for a period of five years.

Post JPC grilling, CAG Rai’s reports on S-Band, UMPP may become harsher

Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) and 1972 batch IAS Vinod Rai’s tough posture during his interaction with JPC members has indicated more trouble for the government. The CAG, whose report on telecom auctioning unearthed what’s now called 2G scam, may take on the government in audits of the Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPP), S-Band spectrum and Padma awards which are now being undertaken. According to some media reports, audits on S-Band spectrum may embarrass none other than India’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

After Prime Minister Manmohan Singh criticized the CAG for entering into the policy space, Rai reportedly toned down the language of the next few reports. The CAG report on Air India, for example, was carefully drafted. Unlike the reports on 2G Spectrum and Commonwealth Games, there are no instances in the report on Air India which would even remotely suggest that the CAG entered into the policy domain. According to a media report, the draft on Air India’s audit included expressions such as “government nudged”, “loss” etc., which were later deleted in the final report. Similarly, his report on KG Basin dragging India’s most powerful corporate group Reliance Industries, was not that harsh either. Here too, CAG did not put any figure of the loss to the exchequer which would have been a headline.

But things may no longer be the same now. After Rai was grilled and almost humiliated by the Congress members of the JPC, there is a strong possibility that he takes on the government again. For the government, it’s a matter of concern as no one knows whether CAG would put an estimated loss to the exchequer in reports on Ultra Mega Power Projects and S-Band spectrum too. Corporate groups like Tata and Anil Ambani-promoted ADAG were awarded Ultra Mega Power Projects.

Rai now wants more power to be given to the CAG to audit the entire Plan expenditure. While talking the CAG’s 150th year celebrations on Wednesday, Rai urged the government to give it the auditing power of projects under public private partnership and other private projects where the government has a stake.

Why Sushil Modi wants CAG to be multi-member?

Bihar deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said that the office of the CAG should grow in tandem with the changing times, referring to the fact that it’s 150 years old. The BJP man in Nitish Kumar’s government wants CAG be a multi-member institution. But why is Modi angry with CAG while all his senior colleagues in the party including Murli Manohar Joshi are happy with Rai. Is it the CAG’s catch on AC-DC bills issue, Mr Modi?

Also Read

Senior IAS attend CAG's closed-door Shimla Meet

20 ex-bureaucrats issue a signed statement voicing against attempts to weaken CAG

Rai (2nd from left) on 150 years' celebrations of CAG

AS many as 20 former bureaucrats including former secretary, ex-additional secretaries and ex-auditors in Comptroller and Auditor General have come out with a signed statement expressing concerns over what they called “the current attempt to undermine and weaken” the institution of CAG over its figure on presumptive revenue losses out of 2G spectrums sale.

The former bureaucrats, who were “disturbed by the dismissive remarks” about the CAG by politicians, included former water resources secretary Ramaswamy R Iyer, former minister, Audit, Indian High Commission London Nilamabar Srivastava, ex-additional secretaries S Krishnan and BS Ramaswamy and former deputy CAGs S Laxminarain, Dr BP Mathur, R Parameswar, Dharam Vir, I.P Singh, Vijay Kumar among others.

“The instrument of accountability (CAG) is wittingly or unwittingly being damaged, and the enforcer of accountability (PAC) seems to be paralysed by internal dissensions,” former additional secretary in ministry of finance and spokesman of the group S Krishnan said in a statement. “It is amazing that the routine bureaucratic practice of a superior correcting the work of a subordinate is being given a sinister interpretation,” the group said referring to CAG Vinod Rai’s overruling of auditor RP Singh who pegged the loss at Rs 2,645 crore instead of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. (Read: Vinod Rai as India’sMost Powerful Bureaucrat)

According to Krishnan, there is a long and hoary tradition that the CAG is the friend, philosopher and guide of the PAC. “The CAG has always been treated with great respect by the PAC and the Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU). It appears from media reports that this tradition is being abandoned and the CAG is being treated as a witness and summoned and questioned,” the statement said.

The group was further anguished by the fact that PAC seems to be “functioning as a group of representatives of different political parties, with the representatives of the Opposition trying to cause the utmost discomfiture to the ruling party, and the representatives of the ruling party trying fiercely to defend that party against any criticism.”

The group of the retired bureaucrats also appealed to the government, political parties and the members of PAC and the JPC to “pause and reflect on this critical issue before further damage is inadvertently caused to the institution of CAG and to the committees themselves.”

Here are the 20 signatories of the statement in support of the CAG...

Senior IAS attend CAG-hosted closed door brainstorming conclave in Shimla

Famous toy train from Kalka to Shimla

AT LEAST 10 government of India secretaries including those who come under Prime Minister’s Office and finance ministry landed up in Indian hill town Shimla last weekend. The reason? Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai, a 1972 batch IAS officer, hosted an official closed-door brainstorming conclave to find out modalities to encompass more aspects of government under its scrutiny.

Despite Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh aired his voice that CAG Rai overstepped his brief by entering into the policy space, Rai has now managed to rally around a large number of senior babus to drive home his point: A need to strengthen the CAG’s role rather than limiting itself to mere auditing.

Those bureaucrats who attended the CAG-hosted Shimla conclave included expenditure secretary Sumit Bose (1976 batch IAS), DoPT secretary Alka Sirohi (1974 batch IAS), rural development secretary BK Sinha (1975 batch IAS), power secretary Uma Shankar (1976 batch IAS) among others. There is no one from PMO directly, but DoPT secretary Alka Sirohi technically falls under the PMO. Secretaries from some other departments like Panchayati Rai, environment and forests and heavy industries were also present. Also, about a dozen secretaries representing various states reportedly attended the close-door conclave.

Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh and Rai’s batch-mate and CVC Pradeep Kumar also attended the Shimla conclave. Rai and Kumar, both of 1972 batch, are close friends and are in regular touch.

Reportedly it was decided in the conclave that government’s social sector expenditure which amounted Rs 1,60,000 crore this year alone need to be scrutinized thoroughly.
Also Read
CAG Rai as most powerful babu


Action and Appointments

a) The CBI in a case related to alleged illegal mining and irregularities in allotment of mining leases to Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC), questioned 1988 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS officer Y Srilakshmi on Saturday. The investigating agency has raided her house too. Srilakshmi, currently commissioner (health), was earlier secretary of Andhra Pradesh Industries Department.

Who are 5 Most Powerful Indian Bureaucrats, 2011? CAG Vinod Rai tops list

Rai with his wife after swearing-in on January 7, 2008

HERE is the final BoI (www.babusofindia.com) list of 5 Most Powerful Bureaucrats of India, 2011. Surprisingly, it’s not a PMO babu who is ranked top, but 1972 batch retired IAS Vinod Rai has been chosen as India’s most powerful bureaucrat, 2011. Rai, who took over as Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in January 2008, has been a game-changer, forcing the government guessing what damning report comes next in this season of scams. On certain occasions, Prime Minister himself took on Rai, but the CAG remained unperturbed and indirectly dragged the PMO in Commonwealth Games fiasco.

In this BoI power list, third in last three years, Rai has piped those like Pulok Chatterji and TKA Nair. The list has been prepared after evaluating the opinions of 50 politicians and bureaucrats in Delhi’s corridors of power, and using inputs from BoI’s own assessment.

Rai, who was the Union banking secretary before joining as CAG, has cornered the government with his reports on 2G scams and Commonwealth Games. India’s investigating agency CBI has so far arrested 17 honchos including a former telecom minister, former telecom secretary and several top business executives in connection to the 2G scam. Rai is however being criticized by a section in the government for entering into the policy space which auditors are not supposed to intrude.

The CAG report on Air India and KG Basin will be tabled in the House today (Tuesday). The KG Basin report is likely to raise uncomfortable questions to India’s most powerful business house, Reliance Industries.

A post-graduate in economics from Delhi School of Economics and public administration from Harvard University, Rai spends his spare time in playing tennis.

In Order

Chatterji 2nd Most Powerful

When UPA chairwoman Sonia Gandhi was reportedly admitted in New York’s Sloan-Kettering hospital for an undisclosed surgery in August, it was Pulok Chatterji who according to some sources, arranged all the logistics keeping the Indian Embassy in Washington in dark. The big question is: Will Chatterji be able to do the same magic in improving UPA-II’s deteriorating health?

Read

The man close to 10 Janpath

Kumar 3^rd Most Powerful

In this season of scams and growing anti-corruption movements, it’s not unusual that power centre shifts from the conventional powerful bureaucrats to those who check-mate the high and mighty. Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Pradeep Kumar is the third most powerful bureaucrat, according to BoI.

Read

Kumar may check-mate high and mighty

Seth 4^th Most Powerful

Those who know Ajit Kumar Seth from close quarters say he is not a power hungry bureaucrat, and in many ways represents the same culture that his predecessor KM Chandrasekhar. He is cool and down-to-earth and does not enter into the other person’s domain. But Seth’s woos may come from the fact that it’s not a honeymoon time for the government.

Read

Seth’s power and problems

Nair 5^th Most Powerful

Principal secretary to PM, TKA Nair, who was the second most powerful bureaucrat in BoI’s list of 2009 and 2010, has slipped to the fifth position in the list of 5 Most Powerful Indian Bureaucrats in India, 2011. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has recently divested Nair’s power as he would no longer be the principal secretary to PM from October 3, 2011. Yet, Nair will continue to exert influence in high-voltage power scene in the year to come. BoI in earlier occasions dubbed him as a master bureaucrat comparing him with Henry Kissinger of yesteryears.

Read

Nair loses AAA rating

Shunglu committee spots CWG officials with fat salaries; check out complete list

VK Shunglu committee investigating the affairs of Delhi Commonwealth Games has indicated that several officials involved in the preparation of the Games received more salaries than they deserved. What’s more, many of those appointed for the preparation of the mega sports event were either relatives or acquaintances of VIPs or office bearers of the Organising Committee.

In first of its actions, the High Level Committee under former Comptroller and Auditor General of India VK Shunglu, has published information about 2100 persons appointed by the Organising Committee of Commonwealth Games, 2010. A press release issued by the ministry of youth affairs and sports said that the committee had received representations and information that “several of the persons appointed were paid salaries not commensurate with their qualifications and that some of them were relatives/acquaintances of VIPs or office bearers of the Organising Committee.”

Just a day after the Commonwealth Games were over, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh appointed a high-level committee headed by former CAG and 1962 batch retired IAS, V K Shunglu to go into allegations of corruption related to the mega sporting event. Shunglu, who was the Comptroller and Auditor General between 1996 and 2002 and has been a trail blazer in ongoing crusade of forcing civil servants declaring their assets, was asked to prepare a report in three months. Later, ex-DoPT secretary Shantanu Consul joined the committee as its Member.

Click Below

Complete list of 2100 officials, salaries

Real Games: Who is VK Shunglu

Action and Appointments

a) Bira Kishore Misra has been appointed as an Additional Judge of the Orissa High Court.

b) Arup Kumar Goswami has been appointed as an Additional Judge of the Gauhati High Court.

c) Justice Jaya Roy has been appointed as Judge of Jharkhand High Court.

d) Prashant Kumar and Pradeep Kumar have been appointed as Additional Judges of Jharkhand High Court.

e) Gurijala Krishna Mohan Reddy and Kolla Surya Appa Rao have been appointed as Additional Judges of Andhra Pradesh High Court. 

Canadian top auditor airs views in support of bureaucrats, what's in Rai's mind?

AS Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai’s team is unearthing one corruption after another in Indian government, here is an interesting observation on bureaucrats by his Canadian counterpart. Auditor General of Canada Sheila Fraser recently commented that she had not found the kind of “inappropriate spending” by bureaucrats as Harper government tightened bureaucrat’s spending in hospitality, travel and conferences. During her decade long career as the top auditor, she has found only a few cases of bureaucrats living the high-life. “I personally don’t think there is a big problem in government with hospitality and travel. The government may want to reduce travel with more video conferences and that’s reasonable — but as for individual cases, they are the exception, not the rule,” she is quoted as saying by Ottawa Citizen. Woh! When can you expect India’s top auditor air such an observation?

Action and Appointments

a) Suspended 1994 batch West Bengal cadre IAS officer Ravi Inder Singh, who was recently suspended from home ministry for allegedly passing official information, recently sought bail from a Delhi court saying he was innocent and can account for all his assets.

b) Dr Alka Bhargava, a 1987 batch Assam cadre Indian Forest Service officer has been reappointed as director in the ministry of human resource development in New Delhi for a period up to June 10, 2012 against the existing vacancy of Saubhagya Ranjan Dhall in that ministry.

Real Games Begin: 1962 batch retired IAS, VK Shunglu to probe corruption allegations related to Commonwealth Games

A DAY after the Commonwealth Games ended with much fun-fare, the real Games virtually begin. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Friday night appointed a high-level committee headed by former CAG and 1962 batch retired IAS, V K Shunglu to go into allegations of corruption related to the mega sporting event. Shunglu, who was the Comptroller and Auditor General between 1996 and 2002 and has been a trail blazer in ongoing crusade of forcing civil servants declaring their assets, will prepare a report in three months.

A postgraduate in history from the University of Delhi, Shunglu joined IAS in 1962 and rose up the ladder to become special secretary in the ministry of power and then secretary in the department of company affairs, ministry of health and family welfare and then department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP). He was also an alternate leader of the Indian Delegation at the International Conference on Population held in Cairo.

Shunglu had also served in Asian Development Bank in Manila and at the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank.

Thanks to his innings as CAG, he was also made the chairman of the UN Board of Auditors General and a member of the UN Panel of External Auditors. Shunglu was also appointed as the external auditor of the International Maritime Organization headquartered at London and of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at Rome.

In corridors of power, Shunglu is known more as an anti-corruption activist. When five bureaucrats from UP declared their assets last year under the initiative of a low-profile anti-corruption organization called India Rejuvenation Initiative (IRI), very few people know that Shunglu was one of the guiding forces of the initiative. Along with former Punjab Director General of Police Julio Rebeiro, former air force chief S Krishnaswamy and former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) JM Lyngdoh, Shunglu is also a member of IRI.

Even before the judges’ campaign started on declaring assets, Shunglu and a few others wrote to the Prime Minister saying that public service conduct rules should be amended and assets of bureaucrats should be in the public domain.

Babu-turned politician PL Punia becomes NCSC chairman

PL Punia, a 1970 batch IAS officer of UP cadre and Congress MP from Barabanki, assumed charge of the post of chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) on Friday. Punia, who was the principal secretary to UP chief minister Mayawati, before both fell out on Taj Heritage corridor case. Punia lost his battle in assembly polls of 2002 because of Mayawati’s concerted effort, but won the war as he bounced back in 2009 Parliamentary polls. 

CAG’s report card on implementation of social schemes may impact collector’s ACR

AIMING at becoming a Tendulkar or Dhoni by scoring 10 out of 10? The annual confidential report (ACR) of an IAS officer may now depend on administrative skills of an officer in implementing Centrally-sponsored social sector programmes, a report by a national daily newspaper said.

According to a report by The Times of India, the large-scale leakages in many of the social sector schemes are forcing the Manmohan Singh government to ask its official auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), to take the district as a unit to evaluate how it has performed while implementing several developmental programmes funded by the Centre. Till now, CAG had been auditing a particular scheme or evaluating the state’s performance as a whole.

“The ACRs of an administrator in the district and those coordinating and monitoring the schemes at the Centre will take into account the CAG review and the briefing made to the chief secretary in a state,” the newspaper report says. The report has quoted CAG Vinod Rai as saying that the skills of an administrator would be one of the factors in evaluating his performance in future.

The CAG has started district-specific audits in Himachal Pradesh (HP), Meghalaya and Uttarakhand.

Also Read

Can every IAS, IPS or IFS be a Tendulkar? Govt says 'no'

Action and Appointments

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the extension of tenure of Dr Pronab Sen as Chief Statistician of India, with concurrent charge as secretary, ministry of statistics and programme implementation for a period of two months beyond May 20, 2010 or till the appointment of his successor, whichever is earlier.

Babus in Demand

a) Applications are invited for the post of chairman of Rubber Board at Kottayam, Kerala in the rank of a joint secretary.

For details, click DoPT’s WIRELESS MESSAGE, dated May 18, 2010.

b) Applications are invited for the post of secretary, Damodar Valley Corporation, Kolkata under the ministry of power at the level of a joint secretary.

For details, click the DoPT’s WIRELESS MESSAGE, dated May 24, 2010.

Know Your Babu: Addl Secretary G C Chaturvedi takes over as head in financial services division of Finance Ministry

G C Chaturvedi, a 1977 batch IAS officer, joined the finance ministry as an additional secretary on Tuesday and will head the financial services department of the ministry. Arun Ramanathan, who retired as finance secretary last week, was looking after the department dealing with banking, insurance, financial institutions etc. himself. Vinod Rai of 1972 batch, who joined as Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) was earlier secretary to this department. With an additional secretary at the helms now, it would no longer be a full-fledged department. The other four departments in the finance ministry, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Department of Revenue, Department of Expenditure and Department of Investment are headed by full-fledged secretary level officials. However, Mr Chaturvedi’s turn to become secretary is not far away as 1975-batche officials are already designated as secretaries to the Government of India. Know Your Babu Fact-file Name: G C Chaturvedi Cadre & Batch: 1977 batch Uttar Pradesh cadre Date of Birth: 17/01/1953 Place of Domicile: UP Mother Tongue: Hindi Indian Languages Known: English, Hindi

Educational Qualification PG, Physics, First division Earlier postings Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs Banking & Insurance, Ministry of Finance (From 26/05/2003 to 19/07/2007) Mission Director & Additional Secretary Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (From 26/12/2007 to 01/05/2009) Foreign Training 1-year course in finance from London School of Economics (LSE), UK, in 1996