New Delhi: This center has allowed officers from all services throughout India such as IAS and IPS to receive and maintain the prizes they receive from foreign officials as members of the Indian delegation, in line with foreign contributions (receipts or retention gifts or presentations), 2012, which regulate receipt of gifts by VIP on a foreign visit.
The rule requires a recipient of a gift from foreign officials to deposit them in ‘Toshakhana’ for the evaluation by customs assessors to assess their market value.
The recipient is then informed about the market value assessed from prizes by Toshakhana.
If the value is less than Rs 5,000, the prize is returned to the recipient for retention.
However, if the value exceeds Rs 5,000, the recipient is offered the option to buy a prize payment difference between market value and RS 5,000.
Interestingly, there is no provision until now in the Rules of the All India Services (behavior), 1968, related to the receipt or retention of gifts received from foreign officials by Indian service officers while becoming part of the Indian delegation or vice versa.
The rules only have gifts that are covered are accepted from close relatives of personal friends who do not have official transactions with them on occasions such as wedding or religious events, etc.
Bureaucrats are needed to report every prize with a value exceeding Rs 25,000, to the government.
To overcome the gap in rules in connection with gifts from foreign officials, the government in Gazette notices on September 15, 2021, adding sub-part to section 11 of the AIS rules (behavior) relating to the receipt of prizes by senior bureaucrats.
The new sub-section allows officers to receive and maintain prizes according to the same set of rules that regulate the receipt of prizes by VIP from foreign officials.
Previously in March 202, the center had circulated a draft proposal for amendments to AIS rules (doing), to the state and UTS for their comments.