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
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