RTI Happenings: Rewarding corrupt officers with promotions at Nalco

[akhilesh yadav]

Rewarding corrupt officers with promotions at Nalco


Reported by Sandeep Pai in dnaindia.com on August 21,2012
Rewarding corrupt officers with promotions at Nalco - Mumbai - DNA

The National Aluminium Company (Nalco) management has been ignoring Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) recommendations for action against corrupt company officers, rewarding them with promotions instead. At the same time, whistleblowers are being victimised for exposing corruption.

The CVC seems to simply have no say in Nalco. In 2010, the CVC requested the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) Nalco to investigate irregularities in the award of contracts worth Rs200 crore for a lean slurry disposal system. The CVO indicted the entire board of the Navratana public sector company in his report. The board included the current acting chairman-cum-managing director, BL Bagra (pictured).

The CVC subsequently recommended major disciplinary action against three executive directors and directed that an officer who is/was not on the Nalco board should conduct a further investigation into the board’s role in the irregularities. Sources said Nalco chose IAS officer VK Thakral to head the investigation. Thakral was then joint secretary in the ministry of mines under which Nalco comes. However, he was on the Nalco board previously and his appointment was in violation of CVC recommendations.

Following complaints, the ministry dropped Thakral and appointed Arun Kumar to head the investigation. He exonerated everyone except AK Sharma, director, production who was charged by the ministry a day before he retired.

CVC director Jyoti Mehta took note of this attempt to suppress the investigation and censured the ministry in a letter dated September 2011. The letter said that though Nalco submitted the investigation report to the ministry in April 2011, the ministry sought the CVC’s advice only four months later when one of the officials was on the “verge of retirement.” “(The) ministry is advised to avoid such last minute references to the commission,” the letter said.
In another instance of protecting/rewarding corrupt officers, several documents with DNA indicate that the management is keen on promoting BN Swain, ED, (HRD and Admin), who has been charged with irregularities several times by the CVC.

Swain was censured by the CVC for violating “delegation of power” and “conduct rules of the company for self gain”.


“In view of the above, the commission (CVC) advises initiation of major penalty proceedings against Das and Swain,” said a letter dated July 2011 by the CVC director.

In another case, CVC director Mehta directed the Nalco management to suspend Swain in a TV theft scam in April 2012. “The act of Swain shows lack of integrity and the commission advises initiation of major penalty proceedings against Swain.”

DNA has documents to show that Swain also abused his position as appellate authority to deny genuine Right to Information Act (RTI) applications.

Despite these black marks against Swain, the management is still keen on promoting him as non-functional director. The ministry rejected the promotion proposal in January 2012 but the Nalco CMD forwarded it again and it is now under consideration with the ministry.

In another case, the Nalco management rewarded corrupt officers with promotions despite recommendations of the CVC.

The CVC had directed minor penalty proceedings against two officers BN Mohanty and Sanjib Ray. But Nalco simply closed the case and informed the CVC that Mohanty and Ray had been let off with a warning. If that wasn’t all, Mohanty [DGM (O)] and Ray [CM(C)] were even rewarded with promotions as ED (mines and refinery) and general manager (smelter) respectively.

Documents with DNA reveal other officers like A Ray, retired director and PR Dasgupta, retired GM, were promoted despite being charged by the CVC too.

While Nalco’s corrupt are being protected and promoted, its whistleblowers have been victimised.
In 2008, the Nalco management opened an office in Rajamundry with absolutely no work at all. SK Misra, assistant general manager (AGM), Nalco says this was done to isolate him because he was regularly exposing the management’s corrupt practices through the use of the RTI Act. The office was closed after Misra made several representations stating that there is no work.

“The expenditure of almost Rs 50 lakhs in Rajamundry was totally avoidable. The management incurred this to put fear in other employees against resorting to the RTI Act and also to make me bend before them,” Misra told DNA.
Vigilance officer Gautam Das who drafted strong vigilance reports was also victimised with the management stalling his promotion. Finally, the CVO intervened and he got justice after three years.

In a statement, Nalco told DNA that “all cases of promotions are dealt in accordance with the rules in vogue. The process of promotion is very much objective.”

[parsar]

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