Toeing the line of the Centre, the administration of Jammu and Kashmir has also reiterated its resolve to provide clean and corruption-free governance while there is notable gap between what is on ground and the official claims. LG Manoj Sinha has been helming the affairs of the Union Territory for three years by July end and administration undoubtedly has taken measures to make the governance transparent and prompt, the public perception however, has not registered its mark.
While the Administration has announced most of the public services guaranteed online and with a feature to switch over to auto-appeal mode yet there is no effective monitoring and accountability on the part of government functionaries who can exploit the service seeker for his being in urgency and to save an expedient situation. The common public perception about a government servant is “how best one could scuttle the work for some easy bucks.” And this practice has been going on, may it be a revenue official, some permission or NOC, water or electric connection etc as all these services are still consuming a longer time than what has been prescribed. There is no mechanism of sudden and random check to find out how any requests for availing public service are received and its timely disposal and questioning on the time-barred pendency.
Government's official portal is testimony to the fact that the axes of legal action against the government officials for corrupt practices are confined to the lower rung of the government hierarchy.
As the time is passing by, the assurances made by the Head of the UT are losing the sheen as corruption continues as before and handful of cases of corruption do surface within regular intervals as was the case in the past when the Article 370 was not diluted and as per the incumbent government, the corrupt used to rule the erstwhile state promoting bribes, nepotism and what not.
The way the corruption in recruitment has come to fore as many exams have been cancelled and central probing agencies are on job to investigate the truth behind the things going haywire, the handling of the cases emerged out of allegations made by the last Governor of J&K, and the corrupt officials falling in ACB and other anti-graft bodies nets show beyond doubt that what has been boasted is not matching on ground. The malpractices reported in the recruitment scams have ended up in the worst tragedy for the genuine youth who suffered out of it and they have been still waiting for the re-examinations and are frustrated as they are becoming over-aged by every passing day of delay.
This is a stark reality that if one considers erstwhile J&K state, it was innately one of the worst states if corruption was taken into account because its name figured in top five states among all if the criterion was corruption. So, one thing is sure that clearing the clutter from J&K is not an easy job but the same was true for those who used to rule the State before August 5, 2019 making it amply clear that the incumbents have till date showcased nothing extraordinary as far as making the UT free from corruption is concerned. In this context, from the top hierarchy to the bottom of the governance model, corruption is still deep rooted and things have not changed much after the change of status of J&K state into a Union Territory.
What is expected from the present dispensation is that no one dares to ask for bribes or greasing the palms as that day, the government can boast of making the J&K free from corruption.
