Telangana: Revenue Department tops in corruption

Hyderabad: The Revenue Department, which has a large interface with the public, especially in districts to carry out various transactions on a daily basis, continues to top the list in the number of bribe cases booked against its employees in 2021. A total of 99 employees from the department were booked this year on charges […]

Hyderabad: The Revenue Department, which has a large interface with the public, especially in districts to carry out various transactions on a daily basis, continues to top the list in the number of bribe cases booked against its employees in 2021. A total of 99 employees from the department were booked this year on charges of demanding and accepting bribes.

Even as the State government is making all efforts to upgrade the department by introducing IT initiatives and rendering services to people, some employees continue to demand bribe from people, causing hardships to them. From issuing caste certificates, handing over survey reports of agricultural lands, carrying out registration of properties to completing mutation of lands, the Revenue Department plays a key role.

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Cashing in on the needs of the people, employees dealing with land records and survey and those in the offices of Tahsildar and Sub-Registrar Office (SRO), Village Revenue Officers (VROs), continue to demand bribe and landing themselves in trouble, a Revenue Department official told ‘Telangana Today’.

Surprisingly, a few employees were found to be collecting bribe with the help of their outsiders. But, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has been cracking the whip on tainted officials by laying traps against them. The ACB initiates action against corrupt officials once written complaints are received. A few weeks ago, U Ravindra Kumar, a junior assistant at Tahsildar office in Mulakalapalli of Bhadradri-Kothagudem district, was caught red-handed by ACB when he allegedly demanded and accepted a bribe amount of Rs 6,000 from a complainant to process and see that the caste certificates of the complainant and his daughter were issued.

After Revenue Department, the Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) is in second place with 50 cases while the Police Department was in third place with 40 cases. The ACB said they were registering cases against the tainted authorities under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act and catching the errant red-handed after laying a trap. On completion of the investigation, the ACB is launching prosecution and departmental action when sufficient evidence was adduced. “Cases of disproportionate assets and laying traps when bribes are demanded are the important ways in which we bring errants to face the law,” the official said.

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