Jagan Mohan Reddy tells babus to explore new avenues for revenue

Vijayawada: Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy has asked officials to explore new avenues for enhancing revenue for the government and at the same time ensure proper tax collections and check corrupt practices at sub-registrar offices.

The CM was chairing a high-level meeting with the officials from revenue generating departments here on Thursday. He asked officials to also enhance GST collections. District collectors and joint collectors must pay more attention to revenue collections for the state government apart from implementing the welfare schemes and programmes, he said.

Jagan said there must be proper coordination among departments like municipal administration, power etc and this would help the people get good services besides helping the state get enhanced revenue.

The CM called for efforts to check corruption in government departments and wondered as to how fake challans were found at sub-registrar offices. Unless the ACB sleuths carried out raids, such misdeeds would not get exposed, he said.

Jagan Mohan Reddy said action must be taken against those involved in such offences. Senior officials informed the CM that such officials were placed under suspension. The CM asked why such actions were not detected and brought to his notice by senior officials, though these were happening for quite some time.

He asked whether the system existed at the micro level to check the recurrence of such incidents. He asked the officials to get intelligence reports at the micro-level and display a phone number in every government office. advising the people to call up the number in case they noticed any issue of corruption.

The CM asked the officials to keep a tab on calls being received at the call centers complaining about corruption by officials. “There is a need to come up with a standard operating procedure (SOP) to curb corruption,” he said, and called for a close tab on payment of challans in all government offices. He asked officials to hold review meetings once a week to identify new sources of revenue for the government and assess the progress of the various schemes and programmes.

The CM called for curbs on illegal transport of liquor especially from state borders and also checks against its adulteration.