THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 700 government officials are under the scanner of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) on charges of corruption. Of these, 200 have been included in the ‘officers of dubious integrity’ (ODI) list, highly placed sources told TNIE.
The 200 officials had investigations carried out against them in the past, only to wriggle out of the predicament. The remaining 500 officials faced no such action, but vigilance had received multiple tip-offs on their involvement in graft.
Sources said that most of the officials who were arrested in sting operations featured in the list that vigilance sleuths had prepared.
TNIE could not ascertain the department-wise or district-wise number of officials in the list, but according to sources most of the tainted officials were from the revenue department, followed by the local self-government department, the water authority, and police.
Sources said those included in the ODI list had been the subject of inquiries in the past. Some of them were the subject of sting operations, but owing to various reasons they managed to evade detection. “There were many complaints and some of them were subjected to sting operations. But they managed to give cops the slip. Those people feature prominently on our radar,” a vigilance officer said.
“Regarding the remaining 500 officials, there have been strong inputs suggesting their involvement in graft. But due to lack of complaints they have not been not investigated into. But we treat them as suspects and are closely watching them,” the officer added.
VACB has arrested 23 government officials this year for taking bribes. The number of tainted officers arrested last year was 39.
A senior vigilance officer attributed the increase in arrests to improved cooperation of the public. “Earlier, there was this tendency of delaying services to people who register complaints with vigilance. That prevented people from reaching out to us. We took special care to do away with that practice. Now, we have made provision to ensure that those who raise complaints are not denied the services they are entitled to,” the officer added.
VACB has also broken with its tradition of not going after tainted central government officials, with three arrested so far this year.