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Our Infrastructure Bureau
Mumbai, Oct 28: Chief vigilance commissioner N Vittal on Wednesday said that he would issue a directive by November 10 asking all public sector banks to complete the computerisation of their branches by January 1, 2000, to rein in financial and bank frauds.
In his inaugural address at the four-day conference on Commasia '98 Networking and Internet, Vittal said that the directive would be issued on the basis of Section 8 (1) (h) of the CVC ordinance and added that "this will lead to clean banking." "I want to make it mandatory for all banks to get computerised by that date."
"This (manual operations) is a major cause of frauds which was used by Harshad Mehta who used the time lag in making entries in the book to his advantage," he said, adding that it was ironical that of the 65,000 bank branches, only 5,000 branches had completed computerisation in view of strong opposition from trade unions.
The delays in computerisation had led to lack of transparency and rampant corruption especially whennon-performing assets held by banks were Rs 45,000 crore and the loans written off amounted to Rs 54,000 crore.
Vittal, who is also a member of the National Task Force on IT and software, said that he would also ask all government departments to submit a monthly activity report on controversial issues of award of contracts and investigations into malpractices within the department. "IT can be useful for better governance," he added.
Vittal said that he has directed junior officers handling vigilance cases to write to the commission if they faced hindrances at work, even from seniors. "This is to break the tribal culture of the corrupt protecting the corrupt and encourage young officers to remain honest," he added.
Vittal said that an order to this effect has already been issued and he has assigned an officer to receive such complaints, feed them into a computer and regularly monitor progress. He added that his office would soon launch a website to register complaints on corruption. "This facility willnot entertain any frivolous complaints but serious ones to discourage blackmail."
According to Vittal, India had to capitalise on information technology as it would boost economic development. "Convergence only leads to progress, irrespective of whether it is convergence of technology, manufacturing/services sector or even convergence of geo-political activity," he said. IT has been responsible for the death of distance, the most crucial factor in globalisation, he added.
Computer Society of India (CSI) president R Srinivasan reviewed the role of CSI in enhancing computer education all over the country. Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association of India president Ashok Kanodia said that the convergence of technologies would help the hardware industry.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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