An integrity pledge acquires meaning only when an institution is willing to subject its own functioning to the same standards it promises to uphold. On the opening of Vigilance Awareness Week, JMC Commissioner Ms. Ayushi Sudan administered the Integrity Pledge to officers and employees, committing the Corporation to transparency, probity and ethical governance. The commitment is timely. JMC is not merely a civic body; it is the custodian of Jammu’s planned growth, entrusted with enforcing the Master Plan, regulating construction and land use, maintaining civic infrastructure and protecting the city’s character as a liveable place. Its credibility will therefore be judged not by the oath taken, but by the action that follows it.
The concerns confronting the Corporation are too serious to be reduced to routine administrative issues. Allegations of money being demanded from sanitation workers and drivers engaged through NGOs, including claims involving payments running into lakhs of rupees, require an impartial examination of the engagement process. Questions have also been raised over the Works and Mechanical Departments, including allegations concerning the quality of civic works. These claims are not proof of wrongdoing, but they cannot simply be allowed to disappear into the files. These allegations warrants serious attention when raises none other than a former Mayor.
The building-enforcement regime is the bigger test of JMC’s credibility. Complaints reportedly reaching the Anti-Corruption Bureau, including those supported by photographs of illegal construction and conversion of residential premises into commercial establishments, raise an uncomfortable question. How does unauthorised development continue in a system that maintains records of notices, sealings and demolitions? JMC routinely publicises such actions, but enforcement cannot end with the publicity surrounding them. A structure demolished today cannot become legal tomorrow unless it is rebuilt strictly in accordance with municipal law and requisite permissions. Any unexplained reconstruction, reopening or change of use after enforcement undermines the action itself and creates the opacity in which irregular practices can flourish. The manner in which construction continues in newly developed illegal colonies within JMC limits also demands a clear institutional explanation.
This is not merely a question of individual violations. The growing commercialisation of residential properties in Channi Himmat, Trikuta Nagar, Gandhi Nagar, Sainik Colony and other pockets of Jammu city is altering neighbourhood character, increasing traffic and parking pressure and undermining planned urban development. Enforcement that appears stringent against the vulnerable but negotiable for the influential inevitably destroys public faith.
More serious is allegations of middlemen seeking money from violators, invoking the names of JMC officials and media organisations. Equally, concerning is the fact that plethora of complaints about illegal constructions continued to knock at the door of anti graft agency -ACB but till date no FIR against the delinquent officers/officials. In the history of JMC, only one enforcement inspector was terminated while two were demoted by authorities for alleged acts of patronizing illegal constructions.
The continued circulation of banned polythene further underline the need to close informal channels of influence. It’s imperative that JMC should establish a digitally traceable enforcement chain from complaint and inspection to notice, sealing, demolition, prosecution and final compliance and publish periodic ward-wise action taken. NGO engagements and major civic contracts should similarly undergo independent audit. Reports of eye wash demolitions is a serious question mark on those heading the enforcement wing in urban local body.
The Commissioner now has an opportunity to make Vigilance Awareness Week a point of institutional reset rather than an annual ritual. JMC should establish confidential and protected channels for genuine whistle-blowers, ensuring that employees or citizens providing evidence are not exposed to retaliation. At the same time, public-interest scrutiny must remain genuinely independent. Recent misadventure of some holy crusaders having commercial interests in JMC and some media houses who are deeply upset over relentless exposes on patronized illegal constructions multiplying through a well entrenched nexus of middlemen and some black sheeps of JMC is an eye opener for new JMC boss about the alleged corruption flourishing on the name of enforcement. The fight for clean governance must not itself become a marketplace of influence which sadly recently exhibited by one holy crusader and a lobby of media houses. Jammu needs a municipal system where the Master Plan prevails over money and proximity, enforcement survives beyond the camera, genuine whistle-blowers can speak without fear, and no illegal structure can return through the back door. The oath has been taken. The city now awaits the proof.