Corruption in Collectorate widespread

Karimnagar: Corruption has been deeply entrenched in various government departments in the district starting from the Collectorate. The canker of corruption is not easy to root out. Although the officials took a pledge on the occasion of the Anti-Corruption Day on Saturday morning that they would strive to establish a society free from corruption, it was back to the square one in the evening.

The Collectorate is the nerve centre of the district administration where all the important decisions are taken. There are 33 departments in the Collectorate comprising more than 1150 employees. Corruption also begins from here.

Some of the officials are habituated to take salaries just like pocket money while taking huge amounts as bribes from the people.

The Collectorate has become a den for the corrupt. Staff work with the Collector, Joint Collector, Additional Joint Collector, DRO and RDO here. The palms of the lower rung officials also have to be greased to get things done fast.

There were reports that the officials even skip their lunch fearing that they might lose the opportunity to take bribes during the lunch hour and they go home by evening after filling up their pockets to their heart’s content.

Although the issue of corruption has been highlighted by the media on several occasions, the government failed to take any action to prevent it while the officials were carrying on with their corrupt practices openly without any fear.

While the government will be observing the Prevention of Corruption Week or Anti-Corruption Week in the coming days, the officials do not seem to take this programme seriously and they were carrying on with their corruption. In one such incident Surender, an employee of the Excise Department, was caught red-handed while he was accepting bribe on Saturday, though he took a pledge that he would try to eradicate corruption.

The common man is shocked by his shamelessness. People are aghast that the Collectorate has been completely besmirched due to corruption and said that the government should do something to cleanse the system.

There were several instances of cases involving corruption at the Collectorate in Karimnagar. In January 2010, a Motor Vehicles Inspector of RTA Bhaduru Naik was caught by the ACB while taking bribe of Rs 5,000.

In July 2010, RVM Superintendent Veerabrahmachari and his junior assistant Sandeep were caught by the ACB while taking a bribe of Rs 3,000 for giving a cheque to clear computer bills.

On 6th July 2012, Weights and Measures Inspector Rajamouli and his attender Ramaswamy of the Revenue Department were caught while taking Rs 15,000 from a farmer Srinivas.

On February 23, 2013, a senior assistant of the district panchayat office Bhumaiah was caught by the ACB while he was taking Rs 4,000 from one T Narasiah of Kottur village of Dharmaram mandal.

On December 4, 2013, Chandraiah, a senior assistant in the department of housing, and attender Shankar were caught by the ACB while they were accepting Rs 3,000 from their colleague and works inspector Chandramouli for sanctioning loan from GPF.

On July 23, 2014, Sub-treasury officer Devender of the Treasury Department was caught by the ACB while he was accepting a bribe.

By: Ch Gopalakrishna