Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
Demand for corruption it seems is increasingly getting linked to inflation. Higher the cost of living more the ‘demand’. Gone are the days of asking for gratification in loose money. A look at statistics of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) one tends to get a feeling that corrupt babudom seemed to have honed skills in reading market better as their greed only shows increasing graph over the years.
The ACB Nagpur registered 135 cases against corrupt government officials in year 2016 and amount of whopping 33.87 lakh was seized during the traps.
In year 2015, ACB had booked 173 corrupt Government officials and total demand of trap amount was only Rs 17.73 lakh. It means though ACB cases registered a drop of 21.96 per cent in year 2016, however the ‘trap money’ increased by 91.03 per cent during the same year.
This increase of 91.03 per cent in ‘trap money’ has raised eyebrows of senior officials of ACB. While talking to The Hitavada, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) ACB, Nagpur Division, Sanjay Darade agreed that there is quite a jump in ‘trap money’. “The officials it seems are getting more greedy as the years passes by. In some cases, we have nabbed the officials for receiving money in lakhs,” said DCP Darade.
Another ACB official said that as ACB cases have decreased and demand money has increased means that the corrupt officials needs are keeping pace with inflationary trend. Many corrupt officials are investing their money in the properties and fancy goods. “After registering offence against corrupt official under Prevention of Corruption Act, the ACB conducts inquiry to determine sources of income and their subsequent investment,” said DCP Darade.
After taking reins of ACB, DCP Sanjay Darade asked to officials to focus more on quality of cases than going in for quantity. Ultimately the charges needs to withstand scrutiny of courts and it not worth wasting time and energy and public money on petty monetary traps. It may be mentioned that the ACB came under controversy in year 2015 after ‘some traps’ were arranged just to attract limelight.
Police Department ‘highest’ in corruption cases
The ACB registered 38 cases against officials of police department from 135 traps in year 2016. Revenue Department is on second number in corruption cases with 22. Nine officials of education department, eight officials each of Gram Panchayat and Panchyat Samiti, seven officials of Forest Department, five each from Agriculture and Zilla Parishad were also trapped by the ACB in year 2016.
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