‘Vigilance Eye’ that exposed many graft cases shut down due to paucity of funds

CVC’s ambitious project helped crack many corruption cases

The mobile version of Project VIGEYE (Vigilance Eye), the Central Vigilance Commission’s platform for whistleblowers to lodge complaints of corruption, has been temporarily shut down due to non-payment of bills.

This is the second or third occasion of the CVC’s ambitious project that helped crack many corruption cases has been shut down owing to paucity of funds.

Explaining the salient features of Project VIGEYE at an interactive session jointly organised by ‘5th Pillar’ and ‘mjunction’ here on Friday, Vigilance Commissioner R. Srikumar said the web and smart phone-based corruption reporting tool for citizens had more than 10,000 registered members.

By sending a blank SMS to 09223174440, a user would get a registration link by SMS.

On completion of the registration process, the user could report corruption by uploading voice, video or text message.

The CVC would keep confidential the identity of the complainant and act on the information.

“The server has been down for a week due to non-payment of bills. We have not been having money to keep the server going. Last week, the operator switched it off. We initially developed it for Symbian (Operating System) and efforts are on to extend the faculty to Android phones,” he said.

Launched in 2010, the project had evoked a good response. Parrying questions on the quantum of the bill, he said the money had to be settled by the CVC.

“It is here that we expect the civil society to participate. All of you must insist that Project VIGEYE continues and adequate funds are allocated for the purpose,” he said.