Punjab government fails to upload property returns of PCS officers

The Punjab government has failed to upload the immovable property returns (IPRs) filed by the Punjab Civil Services (PCS) officers to a public domain.

These returns of the last financial year, ending March 31, 2014, were submitted by most PCS officers to the department of personnel around six months ago.

Only 20-odd PCS officers, out of around 180, have not submitted their IPRs. Though the department of personnel has issued them notices to file their returns, it has no reason to explain why the IPRs received have not been put up in the public domain for scrutiny all these months.

“The IPRs are to be uploaded by the department of governance reforms and they were waiting for all IPRs to be received before these could be put up,” said Gurpreet Sapra, special secretary, personnel. This means even if one PCS officer is not been able to send in his or her IPR, the rest of the data will not be put up in the public domain.

Rakesh Verma, secretary, governance reforms, on the other hand, said there was no IPR pending with their department waiting to be uploaded.

This is the first time that the IPRs of the PCS officers will be made available on a public domain just like those of the IAS officers. Though PCS officers file their IPRs with the government each year as part of the conduct rules, with a view to bringing about transparency in governance, the Punjab deputy chief minister had decided that the IPRs of all
group A and B employees (including PCS officers) in the state should also be put up for scrutiny in the public domain.

While the IPR period for IAS and IPS officers is a calendar year ending December 31, in case of PCS officers, it is the financial year ending March 31.

Of the total over 33,000 group A and B employees, more than 30,000 have already submitted their IPRs and these have been uploaded to the Punjab government official website. The data is available, department-wise, of all the employees in the department except for that of the PCS officers, who normally head many of these departments.

“The department of governance reforms had taken a decision that till all employees of a department send in their IPRs, the data will not be uploaded. The PCS officers are under the personnel department. We will see if the IPRs of the officers who have already filed their returns can be put up while the others send it,” Sapra said.

IPRs of IAS officers

Of the around 175 IAS officers of Punjab, the IPRs of 16 are already available in the public domain on the website ipr.ias.nic.in. The last date to file IPRs is January 31. The complete list has to be made available in the public domain by February 28.