CM declares war against corruption

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, JAN. 2. The Chief Minister, Mr.N. Chandrababu Naidu, has promises that the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) will be strengthened with additional infrastructure and modern equipment and the outdated laws would be amended to provide for more deterrent punishment to corrupt officials.

Addressing the valedictory session of the 40th Foundation Day of the ACB here on Tuesday, Mr. Naidu mooted social boycott of corruption officials as one of the measures to build an atmosphere congenial to step up crusade against corruption.

He said the names of corrupt officials could also be put on the ACB website as was being done by the Central Vigilance Commissioner. He said the corrupt officials should voluntarily opt out of service as his Government was not prepared to brook corruption at any level.

The Chief Minister announced the setting up of two more ACB courts to speed up prosecution of cases involving the corrupt officials. At present there were five ACB courts in the State. Pending finalisation of the budgetary allocations to ACB as per the recommendations of the eleventh Finance Commission, he announced a special grant of Rs 50 lakhs to attend to some immediate needs of the organisation.

Mr. Naidu also announced that a special incentive package would be worked out for the ACB staff to boost their morale in fighting corruption. The ACB, in general, had a poor image and morale because of ``internal corruption'' like the Kurnool inspector case. At the same time, some good works were done like in the case of retired Chief Engineer of A.P. Housing Board, Mr.Surender Bahadur. The cases of ACB were not getting due publicity and hence lacked impact.

The Chief Minister said a review of the old acts and rules was taken up as they outlived their utility. He wanted suggestions to tone up the functioning of the enforcement wings of the Government, like the vigilance set-up in each department, vigilance and enforcement department and ACB.

At present, the role of ACB was more or less reactive, the action triggered only on complaints and press reports. The ACB's action is trap-oriented and only small fish is caught while the bigger ones are left untouched. A complainant's money gets locked up in ACB cases.

The Chief Minister said the ACB set-up should be overhauled and it should be able to ``pick and chose, hire and fire.'' The technology and surveillance equipment of the department should be modernised. He laid emphasis on involving the general public and the NGOs in tackling corruption.

He said E-Governance can reduce corruption. Several initiatives had been taken to reduce the interface between the citizen and the Government.

During his interaction with the ACB officials, some of them had complained that the welfare schemes bred corruption. Agreeing with them, Mr. Naidu said the Central Government was spending about Rs 37,000 crores on poverty eradication but the levels of poverty remained stagnant over the years. The living conditions of the poor would have improved if the amount was directly disbursed to the beneficiaries without routing it through the official machinery, he felt.

He said information technology could be used as a strategic tool to reduce corruption in the execution of governmental schemes. Corruption became a major hurdle in the achievement of goals and for rapid progress.It is a matter of national shame that India was placed at the 66th place among the 85 countries in the corruption perception index by the Transparence International.

Mr. Ramavtar Yadav, Director General of ACB, welcoming the Chief Minister, gave a video presentation of ACB activities.

The Chief Secretary, Mr. P.V. Rao, called for a massive modernisation exercise of the ACB, including the introduction of management information systems, to enable it take on the corrupt effectively.

``The adoption of modern investigating tools was imperative for the ACB to combat corruption as also to raise the expectations of the general public,'' he said at a State-level conference of ACB officials marking the department's 40th Formation Day.

Harnessing technology for the ACB, improving its image, evolving training strategies for meeting challenges, constraints and emerging dimensions in the new millennium, collection of intelligence besides various operational problems were discussed at length by 120 ACB officials of the ranks of SP, DSP and Inspector from all over the State.

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Section  : Southern States
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