Noida, July 2nd, 2010:- Shri Pratyush Sinha, Chief Vigilance Commissioner, Government of India, visited GAIL’s National Gas Management Centre today and was apprised of various activities being handled by the company in the country. Shri Arun Singhal, CVO GAIL, Shri R K Goel, Director (Finance), Shri R D Goyal, Director(Projects), Shri S L Raina, Director (HR) and Shri Prabhat Singh, Director Marketing along with other senior officials of the company were present on the occasion.
Later, addressing the senior officials of GAIL, Shri Pratyush Sinha, Chief Vigilance Commissioner highlighted the importance of Corporate Governance at Company’s Training Institute at Noida, stated that "firm steps need to be taken to weed out corruption from public life as the country is considered to be one of the most corrupt countries in the World." He quoted the example of Argentina, referring how "it ranked second richest countries of the World in year 1900, and has now tumbled down in scale so much that the country stands perhaps in the middle of the rich nations list in the world today". The attributable reasons he said was the failure of governance. Similarly Nigeria is becoming a failing state essentially because of the corruption ‘at the fore in the country’. A society he retorted becomes unviable if it ignores corruption.
Shri Pratyush Sinha added that the current state of naxal menace in the country is largely due to lack of governance in those areas and because the public services have not been delivered. He said that "unless the citizen is awake, the society becomes unviable where development remains lopsided. As a public sector, the level of the accountability is much higher than those of the counterparts in the private sector, because the expenses incurred belong to the public exchequer.
There are two ways to respond to the malfunctions; he said, firstly, the institutional response where preventive vigilance is the core of the institutional responsibility, which primarily means to minimize the corruption. This could be through leveraging of technology to minimize the interface with the customers. GAIL being a technology savvy organization, he said, it should look more towards system operated rather than human interface. Secondly, he said, the individual response, wherein the action should thrive on transparency. He cited the example of Mahatma Gandhi, whose entire life is an example of what he did as he preached to the people at large. Failure of supervision, he said, was a cause of corruption in an organization which may be checked at the level of senior level with a passion and true spirit. He said the need of the hour is to set proper cleanliness at work. Shri Pratyush Sinha, CVC also said that vigilance is a management tool which brings in more transparency and making objectivity in the decision making.
A 1969 batch IAS officers from Bihar Cadre, Shri Sinha became the Central Vigilance Commission of India in September 2006. He said that "Tech savy Company like GAIL should make optimum use of IT/Web & technology to bring Systemic improvements & transparency." Over 175 senior executives including EDs, GMs, DGMs & CMs from GAIL NCR region attended the interactive session.
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