By: Sameer Showkin Lone
Srinagar: In an effort to weed out corruption and strengthen inter and intra departmental vigilance, the government is mulling to install high resolution CCTV cameras in offices having large public interface.
Official sources told The Precious Kashmir that to keep a tight vigil on corruption prone sectors of the government, the Lt Governor led administration is mulling to install CCTVs in all the offices having large public interface. The Traffic police department is also told to install check points at fixed locations.
“The CCTV footage should be preserved for a minimum of six months period, which should be periodically examined by the senior-most officer,” said a senior officer in Civil Secretariat.
It may be recalled that the State Vigilance Commission in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir had also recommended to the then PDP-BJP Government to install CCTV cameras in all offices.
According to a source, the offices of Tehsildars, Naib-Tehsildars, Patwar Khanas, hospital ticket counters and outside labour rooms, RTO/ARTO offices, treasury/sub-treasury, BDO offices, toll posts, clerical halls of offices and police stations will all come under the CCTV surveillance in the first phase.
Besides, it has been said that the traffic police check points should operate at fixed locations on the highways and main roads and should come under proper CCTV surveillance.
The traffic police often face allegations of corruption and other such practices while streamlining traffic and imposing fine on the violators with many such cases videographed and put on social media in the past.
“Traffic cops normally impose fine on the violators, but most of this money goes into their pockets,” says a local Mudassir Ahmed, a banker.
He said if you are a violator, the traffic cop give you two options either pay Rs 100 or 200 to a cop on duty or get a challan of minimum Rs 500.
Two vital departments, Rural Development Department (RDD) and Education Department remain in the news mostly for the wrong reasons like NREGA embezzlements and Mid-Day Meal Scheme.
To stop mal-practices in these two departments, the government is planning to roll out a set of norms aimed at bringing transparency into the daily functioning.