CBI cracks down on India's corrupt babudom

India regularly features in the list of most corrupt nations in the world and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has revealed just why. The agency's countrywide drive against corruption by public functionaries threw up an arc of corruption — from forgery of caste certificates and data theft to bungling in purchases in the much-vaunted Indian Army.

The accused as just as diverse — officials of PSUs, Income Tax, Doordarshan, Delhi Jal Board, army, CISF and several other government organizations in Delhi, MP, UP, Maharashtra, Punjab, West Bengal, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland and Karnataka.

The CBI registered a case on Thursday after it found that army authorities had fraudulently purchased material for barbed wire fencing along the Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir. According to CBI officials, these purchases said to be worth Rs 12.5 crore were made through the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India Ltd to avoid floating tenders. The purchase was shown from Shiva Steel and Wires Ltd at Gangyal in Jammu which, the CBI found, is not equipped to handle such a huge order.

``Wrongdoing is suspected because such purchases are not supposed to be made through NCCF India. Also the firm from which it was shown to have purchased does not have the capacity to supply so much material. The role of some army authorities is being looked into,'' said an official requesting anonymity.

While it appears that the agency has gone into an overdrive in the face of severe criticism over its alleged diffidence before the government in high-profile cases, the sheer scale of the exercise is enough to send warning messages to corrupt public servants. Sixty-nine cases have been registered in the past few days in what is being described by officials as the biggest-ever drive against corruption which has also enrolled the common man through its widely publicised SMS campaign. And the CBI isn't done yet.

``In order to have demonstrative impact, extensive special drives, preferably at least once every quarter, are being organised to target the known corrupt departments/organisations and public servants so as to attack corruption both at the grassroot and high levels,'' said an official.

During the drive in Delhi on Wednesday, eight cases were registered over the usage of forged scheduled tribe certificates, on the basis of which employees of various PSUs and government offices had secured jobs. These organisations included the income tax department, Doordarshan, Delhi Jal Board and Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. The agency also seized Rs 25 lakh from the home of a senior manager in Oriental Insurance in Ghaziabad.

The Delhi wing has also detained three junior engineers and two retired superintending engineers for causing a loss of more than Rs 1 crore to the Delhi Development Authority during 2003-5 while benefiting a contractor. During searches, six bank lockers were found in the possession of the accused. ``So far, one locker has been searched from which Rs 972,000, 10 gold biscuits, 29 gold coins, and 810 grams of gold jewellery have been recovered. The cash available in the bank accounts is around Rs 60 lakh,'