Existence of corruption denotes illness: Ex CJ

Hyderabad, Oct 31 (INN): The Vigilance Awareness Week on South Central Railway commenced today with a seminar on the theme of 'Public Participation in Promoting Integrity and Eradicating Corruption'.

Justice L. Narasimha Reddy, former Chief Justice, Patna High Court graced the occasion as Chief Guest and delivered the keynote address at a programme held at Rail Nilayam Auditorium, Secunderabad. Ravindra Gupta, General Manager, South Central Railway presided over.

Speaking on the occasion, Justice Narasimha Reddy expressed his happiness to be part of Vigilance Awareness Programme organized by the South Central Railway. He acknowledged the relevance of current year's theme to the present society. While equating corruption to a disease and integrity to that of health, Justice Narasimha Reddy stressed the need of public participation in keeping up the health of the body i.e. promoting the integrity of the non-corrupt. Reasoning out that nobody is born to be corrupt, he said that the traditional system of education which used to teach values and imbibe character in a child is required to eliminate corruption because of the reason that corruption is increasingly found to be among the educated. While stating that technology has brought down corruption, he reminded the audience that the same cannot be solely depended on bringing down corruption and requires individual commitment from the employees of the organisation to dedicate themselves to bring down corruption to zero level.

Justice Narasimha Reddy also released a 'Vigilance Bulletin 2016' and 'Sachetan' a quarterly magazine published by Vigilance Department, South Central Railway.

The SCR GM stated that steps like e-auction, e-tendering, public display system, role of RTI has improved transparency in the organisation. He advised the participants that public are alive to the systems, have become vigilant and raising the right questions expecting right answers. Shri A K Gupta, Additional General Manager explained the changes brought in by various IT enabled services and adopted by the organisation coupled with RTI in maintaining transparency in areas concerning external and internal customers of the organisation.

Earlier, Gajanan Mallya, Sr. Deputy General Manager & Chief Vigilance Officer of South Central Railway welcomed the gathering and gave an account of the activities of the Vigilance department during the year. He mentioned that Vigilance department has closely monitored procurement of medicines, issue and accountal of the same through iMMIS (Integrated Material Management Information System), ensured installation and monitoring of surveillance cameras through mobile apps at strategic locations of Central Hospital/Lallaguda, Parcel Office at Secunderabad, various Railway Coaching Depots and Scrap Depots and systematically monitored online complaints received through official website of South Central Railway. Seminars were conducted at Headquarters and various divisions on 'Service Contracts' to bring out awareness among Officers and Staff.