Bhubaneswar: Following the Centre’s amendment to Lokpal & Lokayukta Act, the Assembly Saturday passed the Odisha Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2019 to give relaxation to public servants on submission of their assets and liabilities details.
The state government has extended indefinitely the deadline to file details of assets and liabilities by state government employees under a mandatory provision of Lokayukta Act. A new format and fresh set of rules will be issued by the government in this regard.
As per the original Act, every public servant shall file declaration annually pertaining to his assets and liabilities (as on 31 March every year) on or before 31 July of that year. The property statement of the servants shall be published in the concerned department’s website by August 31 of that year.
However, the state government, which always makes tall claims on ‘transparency’, has brought the amendment to relax the above norms prescribed in the Act. Now, the government will also amend the rules framed under the
Lokayukta Act to prepare a specified format for submission of property details of the public servants.
The government has also wiped out the provision for declaration of properties of spouses and dependants of the employees. On the last day of budget session, the House also passed Odisha State Open University (Amendment) Bill 2019 to provide financial assistance to the institute to meet the expenditure towards salary, remuneration, fees or honorarium cost. The Asian School of Business Management (ASBM) University Bill was also passed.
