Revenue Officers top most-corrupt list

[karira]

Revenue Officers top most-corrupt list


Hyderabad: Revenue officials, particularly those dealing with land records, topped the ‘most corrupt list’ in the state going by Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) cases in 2007. The government watchdog unearthed assets worth Rs 58.3 crore from government servants in 2007, which was Rs 12 crore more than the previous year.

“Department wise, revenue officials are the one who were caught most in our traps while accepting bribe. Of 166 found guilty, 62 are from the revenue department,” directorgeneral (ACB) R R Girish Kumar told reporters here on Monday.

Of the 62 officials, 51 dealt with land records like MROs and deputy tahsildars and the victims or the complainants were poor farmers who approached the officials for pahani or mutation records or registration or transfer records.

“Going by this, there is an urgent need of taking up land reforms in the state,” he said. Apart from the trap cases, 10 officials of the revenue department were caught with alleged disproportionate assets.
Next in the line of corrupt officials were the police. Twelve police officials were trapped while seven others were found in possession of disproportionate assets. Officials who were caught by the ACB range from SI to SP level.

Of the SP-level official, Visakhapatnam rural SP J G Murali was caught, while in the city, a DSP-level official B Mahender Reddy (Asifnagar ACP) and Task Force inspector K Ramachandran were in the dock for accepting bribes.
Girish Kumar said it is difficult to unearth disproportionate assets as the corrupt invest on ‘benami’ names in neighbouring states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

“It is impossible to trap every corrupt official in the over 14 lakh state government officials. We can catch only one out of every 2,000 corrupt officials,” Girish Kumar said.

The DG said 10-15 per cent officials were honest, while an equal per cent were corrupt to the core. “The remaining 60 to 70 per cent of the government employees react to their environment and turn corrupt,” he added.

Even as the director-general ACB claimed there was an increase in trap cases, unearthing of disproportionate assets and number of convictions, the corruption ‘rate’ too had gone up in the past decade.

In 1998, the average bribe amount in AP was Rs 1,984 while it touched Rs 4,902 in 2003 and presently it is Rs 15,000. With regard to disproportionate assets, the average in 1998 was Rs 14 lakh, in 2003 Rs 50 lakh and in 2007 it is at Rs 75 lakh.

ACB proposes three-pronged strategy to fight corruption: The state government on Monday accepted the proposals submitted by the director general, Anti-Corruption Bureau, R R Girish Kumar to fight corruption in the state. In order to combat corruption, Girish Kumar had mooted a three-pronged strategy like simplifying the rules and procedures, ensuring transparency and effective implementation of the provisions of right to Information Act. TNN

Welcome

[karira]

Lok Satta urges AP to implement RTI Act effectively

Hyderabad, January 01: Lok Satta Party President Jayaprakash Narayan today urged the Andhra Pradesh Government to implement the Right to Information (RTI) Act effectively to curb corruption, as suggested by the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB).

In a statement here, he alleged instead of implementing the law in a proper way, the government was harassing people who sought information under it.

If Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was sincere about rooting out corruption, he should focus on politicians who were the real and big culprits.

He should also constitute special courts at district level to go into corruption in politics.


Siasat

[ganpat1956]

Originally Posted by karira

In 1998, the average bribe amount in AP was Rs 1,984 while it touched Rs 4,902 in 2003 and presently it is Rs 15,000. With regard to disproportionate assets, the average in 1998 was Rs 14 lakh, in 2003 Rs 50 lakh and in 2007 it is at Rs 75 lakh.

Obviously there appears to be some mistake in the estimate of disproportionate assets for 2007. If the average bribe has moved up from Rs.1984/- to Rs. 15000/-, then correspondingly the disproportionate assets too should have moved upt to 105 lakhs instead of 75 lakhs during the same period.

[karira]

Ganpat,

There will be no correlation between "average bribe taken" and the "disproportionate assets".

The former figure must be the average calculated on the basis of some "formula" while the later is the actual figure as unearthed through raids and assessment.

[maneesh]

You also have to factor in the other factors like the effort of Anti Corruption machinery and the RTI