IPS officer M Akhaya appointed CVO in telecom dept

IPS officer M Akhaya has been appointed as the Chief Vigilance Officer in the Department of Telecommunications here.
Akhaya, a 1988-batch IPS officer of Odisha cadre, has been appointed for an initial period of three years. His tenure will be further extendable by two years in the same department or three years through shifting to another department, said an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training.
The appointment of the CVO, who acts as distant arm of the Central Vigilance Commission to check corruption, comes at a time when bidding for spectrum by telecom companies is underway.
It is also to be mentioned in this regard that the Indian Police Service (IPS) officers' association has been seeking greater role for its personnel.

A delegation of the association, led by its Secretary PV Ramasashtry, had recently met Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh, and handed over a memorandum of demands relating to their professional grievances.
The association had said that more IPS officers should be considered for the posts of CVOs.

The memorandum said that the intake of IPS officers as CVOs has significantly gone down over the last few years as the new condition in force since 2009 makes it mandatory for applicants for such office to have been empanelled first in the rank of Joint Secretary and sought removal of such bottlenecks.

Earlier, 1990-batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IPS officer Anuradha Shankar was appointed as the Chief Vigilance Officer of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd ( HPCL), Mumbai.
There are 3,798 IPS officers serving across the country as against their sanctioned strength of 4,728.