Central Vigilance Commission suggests multiple mid-career attitudinal training for officers

NEW DELHI: The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) wants to bring about a serious ‘attitudinal change’ among government officials to inculcate higher integrity value systems and a ‘naitik’ approach to work, through a series of specialised trainings.
ET gathers that several inter-ministerial meetings have been held over the last month to bring about this change. The CVC has proposed that it should be made mandatory for officers to undergo at least a one-week exposure at the induction stage and then a 2-3 day exposure during the mid-career stage for this attitudinal change towards greater probity and integrity.

Officials from departments and ministries which are seen as more ‘prone to corruption’ such as banking, major PSUs, railways will be targeted on priority besides public-facing departments, sources in the know said.

The idea is to help inculcate a greater commitment to probity, sense of moral duty and public good and “refine” the attitude towards work. ‘Institutes of excellence’ with specialised and targeted integrity training modules will impart these training sessions.

The Central Vigilance Commission has set up a four-member panel including Chief Vigilance Officials of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) besides the Commission officials to identify Institutes of Excellence suitable to train batches annually.

This committee, set up in September this year, has already visited DMRC, the Delhi-based NGO Goonj and Panchgani’s Change-India in its search for suitable training institutions. DMRC’s current training modules are already said to have found favour for their effectiveness.

The issue is being discussed with the Department of Personnel & Training and the Institute of Secretariat Training & Management (ISTM)—the central training institute for civil employees. The deliberations have picked up steam after the Prime Minister’s October 27 address at the National Conference on Vigilance and Anti-corruption.

Modi had called upon all government officials to address the problem of ‘generational corruption’ at the meeting and said that personal corruption is ultimately linked with economic offences, money laundering, drugs, terror funding and terrorism. He called for ‘systemic checks’, effective audits and more ‘capacity building and training’.

This ‘Naitik Bharat’ mission will also tie up with the CVC’s ambition of instituting the ‘Integrity Index’ –– a tool and index to assess government departments on where they stand on anti-corruption measures. The Index being drawn upon by IIM-Ahmedabad will be based on bench marking of governance processes by internal and external stakeholders. IIM Ahmedabad has already submitted its report on the Index to the CVC.