The Hindu : Front Page : Using technology to fight corruption

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Monday, Apr 13, 2009
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Using technology to fight corruption

V.S. Palaniappan

— Photo: M. Periasamy

Reaching out to public through SMS.

Coimbatore: The Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) have started making extensive use of technology to fight corruption.

Coimbatore Consumer Cause (CCC) secretary K. Kathirmathiyon said there existed a government order that called for putting up notice boards with addresses and phone numbers of nearest Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption offices to enable people to prefer complaints on corrupt practices. But compliance to this directive was very poor. Most of those who were victims of corruption and filed complaints later lost interest to pursue the cases to their logical conclusion because of lack of knowledge about the avenues to fight corruption, Mr. Kathirmathiyon said.

To overcome this and keep the public informed, the ACB of the CBI has hit up on an idea to send Short Messaging Service (SMS) to mobile subscribers. The SMS reads “Fight against corruption: Complaints on Central Government Offices/Banks/Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs). Kindly contact SP, CBI-ACB Chennai at 044-28255800 or send SMS to 9444049224.” Complaints could be sent by email too ( sp1acchn@cbi.gov.in).

In fact, irrespective of the nature of the information, the CBI used to intimate the DVAC if the complaint related to state government offices and exchange of information had been vice-versa.

CBI officials say response to the SMS route has been good. As far as the state government offices in and around Coimbatore are concerned, the DVAC sleuths say they welcome information over phone (0422-2238647 or 94450-48882 or 94431-22666) and could be even by SMS.

The DVAC at the state level could be intimated through dvac@tn.nic.in. Shortly, the DVAC, Coimbatore, plans to have an e-mail ID to which complaints can be sent to.

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