PANAJI
That cash-for-jobs is near rampant in government recruitment is virtually common knowledge and hardly evokes animated reaction anymore but when it is acknowledged by a top bureaucrat in black and white, it is bound to kick up a storm.
And, it did kick up a storm in the Goa legislative Assembly on Friday with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant promising that the Chief Secretary will initiate disciplinary proceedings against the concerned officer under Civil service rules.
Reference to the graft in government recruitment is found in a Marathi book "Utta Sangharsh" in which the author Dr Uday Gaonkar, a senior official in the education department, comments that getting a government job today costs anything between Rs 5 to 6 lakh.
Dr Gaonkar makes the reference in the book in context of making an appeal to members of Scheduled Tribes community who land jobs via reservations, without having to pay these bribes, to voluntarily donate at least Rs one-lakh to the non-profit social organisation of their ST community.
The issue was raised in a calling attention motion by Vasco MLA Krishna Daji Salkar, who produced the extract of Dr Gaonkar's book, where the reference to the graft in government recruitment is made.
Summarily terming these as "false allegations" Salkar demanded to know what action the government will take to correct these.
Interjecting on the issue, Vijai Sardesai, cited the recent exposes of job scams including the PWD junior engineers recruitment which was abandoned after a vigilance inquiry, to suggest that graft in government recruitment was now being acknowledged even by bureaucrats, on the record.
Sawant, however, refuted Sardesai's argument. He said, the book is not a government publication nor does his government have anything to do with it.
"It is perhaps written by Dr Gaonkar in his personal capacity and the extract quoted is his personal opinion," Sawant said.
The government has nothing to do with it and the chief secretary will initiate proceedings under the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964, Sawant said.
Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar, who himself hails from the ST community, also joined the issue and pointed out that the book was released while the officer was Assistant Director in the Education department.
