82 per cent jump in corruption complaints; Railways tops: CVC

An unprecedented over 64,000 corruption complaints were received by the Central Vigilance Commission last year, a rise of 82 per cent than the preceding year.

The Commission received 64,410 complaints, including 2,048 brought forward, during 2014. Despite the manifold increase in the volume of work being handled by the Commission, there has been no increase in the staff strength, the CVC said in its annual report 2014, which was tabled in Parliament recently.

The anti-corruption watchdog had received 35,332 complaints in 2013. There has been a rise of 82.29 per cent in the corruption complaints in last year.

"It is for the first time that the Commission had received such a high number of corruption complaints," a senior CVC official said.

Of the total of 64,410 complaints received by the CVC, 36,115 were vague or unverifiable, 758 were anonymous or pseudonymous and 24,012 were for officials not under CVC.

There were 1,214 verifiable complaints which were sent for inquiry or investigation to Chief Vigilance Officers (CVOs) who act as distant arm of the CVC, and CBI.

Railways has topped the list of government organisations against whom maximum number of complaints of alleged corruption--over 12,000--were received by the CVOs in last year.

As many as 12,776 complaints of alleged corruption against Railways employees followed by 6,836 against bank officials, 3,572 against Delhi government employees and 3,468 against Income Tax officials were received in 2014, as per the annual report. 

About 45,713 complaints of corruption were received by the CVOs against government employees. Of these, 32,054 were disposed and 13,659 were pending. A total of 6,499 complaints were pending for more than six months, it said.

A total of 3,378 corruption complaints were received against officials working in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, 2,917 against employees working under Urban Development, 1,494 against those in Steel Ministry and 1,303 against Department of Telecommunications employees, the annual report said.

The CVC tendered advices in 5,867 cases during 2014. These include Commission's advice of initiation of major penalty proceedings in 624 cases and minor penalty proceedings in 270 cases as its first stage advice. Similarly, Commission advised imposition of major penalty in 542 cases and minor penalty in 229 cases, it said.

There was a vacancy of 58 employees, as against the sanctioned strength of 296 in CVC, the annual report said.

The CVC had received 37,039, 16,929 and 16,260 complaints in 2012, 2011 and 2010, respectively, according to its annual reports for respective years.

Similarly, 14,206 and 10,142 complaints were received in 2009 and 2008, respectively. In 2007 and 2006, the Commission had received 11,062 and 10,798 complaints, respectively. Also, 9,320, 10,735, 11,397 complaints were received by it during 2005, 2004 and 2003, respectively, as per the annual reports.