Timing of vigilance raid at MMC office raises eyebrows

DTNext has learnt from reliable sources that the women were straightforward clerks who had possessed petty cash without recording it in the PCDR (Personal cash disclosure register), which is an offence. Vigilance sleuths were also understood to have sealed the lockers and taken some records from the reservation office on the second floor of MMC building. 

However, back in the unreserved ticket booking office, known for the ticketing scam about which this paper had extensively reported a fortnight back, the raid ended as a damp squib with vigilance presence only creating nervous moments for a few inexperienced booking clerks who were urgently sourced from other places a few days back after nearly 14 clerks owing allegiance to SRMU planned and availed sick leave en masse in protest of some streamlining done by commercial managers recently. Though it is imperative to maintain the element of surprise during raids, even old timers in commercial department admitted that Friday’s was too early for the usual Deepavali time raid and a couple of clerks were aware of the raid even before vigilance watchdogs reached MMC. 

The timing of the raid has raised suspicion even among officers who wondered why the vigilance hit the ‘notorious’ booking office when the experienced clerks were on leave. “Did they not receive their intelligence inputs? Clerks were mobilised from other centers in the division to make up for the absence of 14 clerks on sick leave, which, in itself is suspicious,” a senior SR. officer told this paper under condition of anonymity. Friday’s raid would only intimidate the inexperienced clerks brought from outside. “The errant clerks, some of whom remain there for nearly two decades, against the stipulated maximum fouryear period, want to create the situation in order to continue there. The raid, even if it were done with a good intention, may end up serving their purpose,” the officer reasoned. However, one cannot dispute the fact that railway vigilance had quite often in the past only trapped slack individual clerks and let off the actual sharks involved in con job.