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Vigilance index stirs up public sector bankers

Tamal Bandyopadhyay

The public sector banking industry is on a collision course with the Chief Vigilance Commissioner N Vittal on his proposed corruption index for banks.

The industry doesn't want Vittal to go ahead with the index as it will single out only the state-run banks while the private players will be left untouched.

"One can't crucify the public sector banks and leave the private sector untouched. We are in the same business. If one is branded as corrupt, there will be flight of customers and the private sector will reap the benefit," said a bank chairman.

The India Banks' Association has formally taken up the matter with CVC. It has made it clear that IBA does not "endorse" the CVC view on formulating the corruption index for only the state-run banks leaving the private players outside (since they do not come under the CVC ambit).

"No investigative body should be allowed to abuse the public sector banks. Every state-run bank has a chief vigilance officer which is an extended arm of CVC. They can be given more powers if required. But the index will do a lot of damage to the industry," a source in IBA said.

An unfazed CVC is, however, going ahead with the proposal with a change in the name of the index. Instead of corruption perception index it will be called probity perception index.

The state-run banking industry will not be forthcoming in sharing the data with the CVC which are required to build the index. That, however, is unlikely to spoil the CVC plan as it has access to data on reported cases of corruption, officers involved and complaints made to the CVC.

"We may not be able to stall the CVC from going ahead with the plan. But the fact remains that IBA does not endorse it," said the association source.

Vittal wants to come out with the index by June this year before he retires. The plan is to make it an annual feature.

Along with the state-run banks, government departments and public sector units will be covered by this index and the plan is to announce the top 20 corrupt units in these three segments.

Instead of branding a banker (or, for that matter a PSU chief or a bureaucrat) corrupt on a scale of 1-10, the index will focus on the other side: honesty. In other words, if one scores four out of ten in corruption index, the person will be projected as scoring 6 in honesty.

The rating (on a scale of 1-10) will have three components -- probity perception index, field study and meta perception.

The field study, to be conducted by three organisations -- Centre for Management Service, Transparency International India and Strategic Management Group -- will carry 70 per cent weight, corruption index will have 20 per cent and meta perception (organisations rating themselves) 10 per cent.

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