VIJAYAWADA: The vigilance department has been at the forefront towards achieving policy transparency, accountability and corruption-free governance, where it carried out a total of 1,629 raids on different sectors in 2022, said the Director General (DG) of Vigilance and Enforcement (V&E) Shankha Brata Bagchi.
Addressing the review meeting on Monday with all the regional vigilance and enforcement officers (RVEOs) in the State on the performance of the units for the financial year 2022-23. DG Shanka Brata Bagchi reviewed the work done by all the units, with regard to targets that were fixed to detect the revenue leakage which causes loss to the government exchequer and the percentage of achievements. He also reviewed inspections conducted on government and private institutions.
The DG said the V&E department has carried out raids on various departments such as school education, social welfare hostels, and PDS shops and served notices to officials against the irregularities. He informed that 541 criminal cases were registered against hoarders and black marketers for creating artificial scarcity of essential commodities.
The DG further instructed the RVEOs (Regional Vigilance and Enforcement Officers) to conduct more raids on hoarders and black marketers to file criminal cases under the Essential Commodities Act as well as other sections of the law for violating rules.
Later, Bagchi reviewed the status of 85 pending enquiries and directed the officials to complete them at the earliest. The officials were instructed to build up a strong network of informants to collect information about leakages of government revenue and wasteful expenditure of government funds. “Bind over proceedings were initiated against 36 habitual offenders under the Essential Commodities Act. Any information with regard to any allegation, government revenue leakages may be sent directly to the Vigilance DG through message, phone call or WhatsApp to the number 9440906254,” said DG Bagchi.