Nitish Kumar and (above) Sudhir Kumar Rakesh

Patna, March 2: Four senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers have expressed concern over the state government’s move to bring the asset details of the government employees in the public domain.

A highly placed source in the general administration department (GAD) told The Telegraph today: “ELSN Bala Prasad, Sudhir Kumar Rakesh, Anshuli Arya and JRK Rao have written letters to the government stating that bringing asset details of employees in the public domain might cause security threat to them.”

While Prasad is the director-general of Bihar Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development, Rakesh holds the post of chief electoral officer of the state. Rao is posted as commissioner of Kosi division and Arya is the managing director of Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority. None of the officers could be reached for their comments on this issue, though.

The source made it clear that none of these officers questioned the decision of the state government. They just raised the security question in their letters.

While these four officers have chosen to write letters, some officers belonging to the All India Services and serving in Bihar claimed in private that the move was against the norm of the code which is to be followed by All India Service officers as far as declaring the assets is concerned.

“According to the code, we used to declare the details of immovable assets only, but now the state government is forcing us to declare the details of movable property. I fail to understand the logic behind this move,” said an IAS officer.

A senior state government officer, however, rubbished such claims and stated that one cannot cite rules against a decision taken at the highest level. “Everyone has to follow the decision,” he said.

The assertion of this senior officer can be understood as chief minister Nitish Kumar himself has made it clear that he is in no mood to compromise with the transparency issue as far as people engaged in running the state are concerned.

In an interview to The Telegraph in January this year, Nitish had said: “The message I have sent out is clear: zero tolerance. That message is as clear to my colleagues in the party and government as to the police and civil services. We have made a start, all ministers have declared their assets. All officials from top to bottom will have to do that.”

He had also made it clear that these details would be brought in the public domain. To a query on this issue during the course of the interview, Nitish had said: “Of course, everyone declares assets openly. And we will go after anyone in possession of anything beyond their means, we are going to review assets of relatives, too, in order to check benami investments. Here again, there are some legal hurdles, but we are working to neutralise them. If it takes creating a certain fear in the mind of criminals, we will create fear but we must move against corruption. It was one complaint I heard loudly throughout the campaign and it is something I earnestly promised. I can sense that people are moved on the corruption issue, they are with anyone who fights it.”