Hyderabad: Reports filed by the Vigilance and Enforcement wing (V&E) since 2014, after inquiring into corruption in various state departments, have been dumped in the offices of these departments with no action being taken against the erring officers. There are over 300 such cases. The departments that have the maximum number of ‘action taken’ reports pending are: municipal administration and urban development (47) which is the mother agency to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, HMWSSB and other urban civil bodies, the state revenue department (45), and civil supplies department (44).
In queries sent under the Right to Information Act, seeking to know the status of action taken against the corrupt officers, the answers received were: ‘File is under examination,’ ‘Commissioner to initiate major penalty proceedings against the officer,’ ‘Action taken report pending for disciplinary action,’ ‘Awaits Commissioner’s report to initiate action’ and so on. It should be noted that these files are pending since 2014.
M. Padmanabha Reddy, secretary of the Forum for Good Governance, said that the vigilance and enforcement department was established to control corruption in the administration, “which is currently not effective.” He said a majority of the V&E reports are still pending, with the various departments. “If the government is not serious about such reports, there is no purpose for V&E to conduct enquiries.”
Also, every department has a separate vigilance cell. “They are supposed to pursue the action taken in the report. But instead, the officials are sending it to the commissioner and the files get stuck and there is no further persuasion.” “We have demanded that all V&E reports should be put before the Legislative Assembly,” Mr Reddy added.
