Revenue dept takes the corruption cake

Despite an anti-corruption wave in the country, the Revenue Department employees continue to demand and accept bribe from the public even to do their routine official work.

As many as 386 staffers of the department have been caught red-handed accepting bribe from 2008 till date.

The number of such cases may not be huge, but what is alarming is the increasing number of employees being trapped by the Lokayukta police over the last four years. In 2008, as many as 77 employees were trapped while accepting bribe; it was 93 in 2009, 102 in 2010 and 114 so far this year.

A majority of those who have been trapped are lower-rank officials who are approached by the public for minor transactions such as property-related records.

In the trap cases list of the Lokayukta police, the Police Department is only second to the Revenue Department. In the Police Department, too, it is the lower-rank employees who have been caught while accepting bribe.

As many as 150 police personnel have been trapped from 2008 onwards. In the third place is the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department (141), followed by the Health Department (73 cases). There are totally 38 plus departments listed.

Surprisingly, the departments such as mining, forest, industries and commerce, commercial taxes, whose employees have been indicted in the Lokayukta report, are not in the top positions in the trap cases list. As a matter of fact, the KIADB, which is in news for all the wrong reasons because of illegal denotification of lands, has registered just one trap case over the last four years.

The Lokayukta police lay a trap to catch a government employee when they receive a complaint of bribery.

However, if a bribe-giver has no qualms greasing the palms of government employees, then no case is registered.

In case of illegal land deals, the giver and the taker are mutually benefited, and hence not many complaints are registered, sources said. In addition, in cases of largescale illegalities, usually senior officers are involved.

Conviction
However, convictions have hit the hilt. While the rate was 8.30 per cent (8 cases) in 2003, it went up to 19 per cent in 2009 and has touched 41.80 per cent in the current year (69 cases).

One of the reasons for the higher rate of conviction is the usage of technology for investigation. Audio and video recordings are produced as evidence before court, sources said. The Lokayukta police are investigating a total of 174 cases booked during raids and 594 trap cases.

Trap cases
Department wise total trap cases from 2008-2011: Co-Operation - 20; Transport - 35: Food & Civil: 11; Urban Development  - 29; Revenue - 386 ; Police -150; RDPR - 141; PWD - 11; Forest  - 21; Indus & Commerce - 22; Irrigation - 11; Social Welfare - 39; Excise  - 14; Finance  - 56; Education- 57; Labour  - 11; KPTCL  - 74; KIADB - 1; Agriculture - 17;  Judicial -  7; Planning - 4; DPAR - 1; Energy - 5 ; Info & Broadcasting - 1; Sericulture - 7; Animal Husbandry - 5; Kannada & Culture - 3; BDA - 3; Women & Child - 3; BWSSB  - 6; BBMP - 23; Health - 73; Home - 4; Fisheries - 7; MLA  - 4; Muzrai - 1; Others - 3.
Total cases in 2008 – 280; 2009 – 314; 2010- 326 and 2011 – 355