Telangana’s Vigilance and Enforcement (V&E) department has listed about 660 cases of corruption in different departments and also alerted about 722 cases where there could have been irregularities committed, but not a single case has been taken to the logical end and not a single official has faced punishment in the last six years.
Forum for Good Governance (FGG), in its latest expose, informed the media on Wednesday that the ‘serious misconduct’ by government officials and corruption related issues pertaining to various departments were being brushed under the carpet because the head of the departments concerned were not showing importance in taking necessary action.
Forum secretary M. Padmanabha Reddy said that the corruption cases have been kept pending because of lack of any ‘action taken report’ from the head of the department concerned. “Whenever the director general of vigilance and enforcement sends a report indicting a particular official, the head of the department concerned should take immediate action but there has been no proper disposal of cases. This is directly encouraging corruption,” he maintained.
Most of the cases of corruption and irregularities mentioned in the V&E department reports pertain to officials working in the revenue, municipal, Panchayat Raj, irrigation and agriculture departments. Mr. Reddy stated that the chief secretary had been apprised about the pending V&E cases in the past but no action has been forthcoming.
While the municipal administration had 139 cases of corruption and 87 cases of alerts, the revenue department has 80 corrupt cases and 267 alert cases, panchayat raj has 79 corrupt cases and 52 alerts, agriculture department has 61 corrupt and 52 alert cases and Irrigation has 52 corrupt and 15 alert cases, as per the report submitted to the government.
Corruption cases in labour and food, civil supplies has been low but 101 alert cases in the former and 54 in the latter are notable. Interestingly, education, planning and minorities departments had zero cases in both categories.
Therefore, the Forum appealed to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to take up the matter with the government for appropriate action as it is giving scope to ‘tainted officials’ to escape punishment and there is ‘no fear of punishment’ among employees.