V K Shunglu, who retired as the Comptroller and Auditor General eight years ago, is the kind of retired bureaucrat every government would like to retain. He has proved to be unfailingly reliable, a great virtue for a government with unparalleled faith in the power of committees. If there is a committee and Shunglu is heading it, his peers say you can be sure that the government will hear what it wants to hear.
The peer impression is about to be tested as Shunglu has been appointed to head the panel to probe corruption in the Commonwealth Games.
He is already a member of a committee on energy-saving appointed by the Prime Minister. He has headed a committee on the displacement caused by Sardar Sarovar Project. He headed a committee appointed by former Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi on the demand of Indian Institutes of Management for a fee hike (on that occasion, he disappointed them by saying that no hike was warranted and, in fact, they could do with taking no fees at all!). And he was part of the Prime Ministers' empowered committee to select excellent IAS officers from all over the country in 2007.
The biggest achievement of the Shunglu Committee on Oversight Group, appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006, was to justify the position taken by the Madhya Pradesh government and the Centre on rehabilitation and the number of those being ousted.
The report helped the state government and the Centre justify their positions on rehabilitation targets. Critics from the Narmada movement say it also helped the state get away without doing much for the displaced.
To keep himself engaged after retirement, Shunglu started a club of retired IAS and other professionals called the India Rejuvenation Initiative, whose founding members include N C Saxena, J F Rebeiro, J M Lyngdoh and Bhure Lal. The objective is to crusade against corruption.
Much before the issue of disclosure of judges’ assets became a national debate, Shunglu and his friends at IRI inspired disclosure of assets by IAS officers in Uttar Pradesh and wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking amendments to service rules to enable the disclosure.
Shunglu’s colleagues say that if the government wants people nailed Shunglu is the man who will help carry out the sentence. Given the outcry over the Games’ organisation, his hands may be full for some time.