The Centre has directed all Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers to file their property details on time or face action. IAS officers must submit their annual immovable property return (IPR) by 31 January of the following year, and failure to comply may lead to disciplinary proceedings against the officers concerned.
The Department of Personnel and Training introduced online filing of IPRs in January 2017 through the SPARROW module. Officers can submit their IPRs either electronically or by uploading scanned copies of manually filled forms, as the module will automatically close after the deadline.
Secretaries of central government departments and chief secretaries of states have been instructed to ensure compliance by all IAS officers under their jurisdictions, and non-compliance can also result in denial of promotion. The rules have been amended to make timely IPR filing mandatory for consideration for advancement to the next level in the pay matrix.
Such disclosure encourages transparency, as these government employees are expected to be transparent in their dealings. While such an exercise may seem like a futile attempt to ensure a corruption-free bureaucracy, there is nothing wrong with enforcing what is expected of these officers. It is also a useful measure for scrutiny, as it is not unusual to find some officers possessing disproportionate assets.