Top IFS officers declare their assets

Out of nearly 700 IFS officers, about 300 have declared their assets so far and the details have been put on the External Affairs Ministry website, officials said here.The last date for declaration of assets is May 31.

According to the declaration, Rao has only one residential apartment in Gurgaon which she bought for Rs 25 lakh in 2003 while Indian Ambassador to the UN Hardeep Puri has purchased a residential flat in posh West End area at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore in 2005.
For Puri's flat, funds to the tune of Rs 1.42 crore was raised through sale of previous properties and a Rs one crore loan was taken from a private bank, according to the declaration.

Interestingly, former Joint Secretary in charge of Pakistan affairs and current Ambassador to Singapore, TCA Raghavan has declared a house in East Pakistan displaced persons colony (Chittaranjan Park) with a current price of about Rs. 1 crore as an asset.

The house is in the name of his wife Ranjana Raghavan and her sisters and was inherited by them upon death of their mother in 1986, according to the declaration.

Ambassador to Bhutan Pavan K Verma, Special Secretary (Public Diplomacy) Jayant Prasad, and Ambassador to Muscat Anil Wadhwa are among those who own high value properties, either ancestral or otherwise. The declaration came in the wake of a Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) circular to all Group ‘A’ officers in the Central government to declare their assets by May-end.

The officials said the IFS officers, posted across the world in about 200 missions, along with those posted at South Block in the Capital have been asked to submit details of their "immovable" assets by May 25 which include land, plots, houses, etc.

The DoPT circular follows judges and politicians declaring their assets, triggering demands that the assets of IAS, IPS and Group 'A' Central services too be made public.