The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) conducted surprise inspections at select village offices across the State and found large-scale disregard for citizens seeking services via the government e-portal.
The agency found hundreds of applications pending disposal. Citizens had filed requests mostly through the district e-portals. They included requests for income, non-creamy layer, nativity, domicile, possession, property valuation and dependency certificates.
The online portal ensured transparency and saved citizens the ignominy of queueing in front of village offices and waiting their turn to submit their applications directly to the staff.
The VACB detected a concerted effort at various levels to bypass the e-portal system that arguably checked corruption and to employ agents to collect backhanders from citizens seeking multiple services.
The VACB found that citizens’ right to service mainly remained on paper in several village offices.
It found hundreds of applications pending disposal in village offices across the State. Most were requests from the citizens for property valuation, a significant avenue for corruption that the e-portal had aspired to plug.
In some village offices, the staff bypassed precedence to give weightage for applications received recently and possibly through intermediaries.
Additional Director General of Police, VACB, T. K. Vinod Kumar said that the agency would give a detailed report based on the inspections to the government.
VACB Superintendent of Police Reji Jacob and VACB (SP-Intelligence) E.S. Bijumon coordinated the raids.
