MESSAGE FROM VIGILANCE DEPARTMENT

The role of Vigilance in building a “New India” is all but indispensable. However,despite a ubiquitous presence of Vigilance Departments across most public institutions of the country, “Vigilance”remains a much misunderstood term. Oxford dictionary defines “Vigilance” as “The action or state of keeping careful watch for possible danger or difficulties”. The exact etymology of this word is rather uncertain: being either from the Latin word “vigilantia” or from the French “vigilare” meaning ‘keep awake’.

“vigilare” meaning ‘keep awake’.

The word came into usage in the late16thcentury. It is during this century that the West started to rise above Asia, Spain and Portugal explored the world's seas and opened unexplored oceanic trade routes,the New World was conquered by Spanish and the Portuguese became the masters of the sea routes to Asia and Africa.It was an era of war and uncertainties among groups, nations and cultures. It is therefore no surprise that the word Vigilance” gained currency in the literature of such a period. Those who kept “vigil” perhaps survived and prospered while those who didn’t went down.

Preventive Vigilance” is essentially about this literal dictionary meaning of the very word “vigilance”, i.e., “keeping careful watch for possible danger or difficulties”. It is about serving as an early warning system and to ward off possible danger to the Organization. In that sense nothing is perhaps more integral or inalienable to the Organization than this part. So much is the need for such a function that the Irish orator, John Philpot Curran, is supposed to have said in 1790: “Eternal Vigilance is the price of freedom”. Nothing thus can be farther from the image of Vigilance as an external overbearing big brother with an intention to punish helpless misunderstood employees.

That is why in Vigilance Department of Kolkata Port Trust, we strive continuously to make you feel that we are part and parcel of your existence, because we are here: