83 government employees held for taking bribes from Jan to June: Haryana vigilance bureau

“Adopting a zero-tolerance policy against corruption has resulted in the arrests of 10 gazetted officers and 73 non-gazetted officials from January to June 30. On average, 15 public servants have been arrested on corruption charges every month,” a spokesperson of the Haryana State Vigilance Bureau said.

Elaborating on the raids, the spokesperson said that 23 police personnel, 18 revenue department officials, 15 officials from the power utilities department, 8 urban local bodies officials, 3 officials each from the excise and taxation and social justice and empowerment departments, and two officials each from the transport, food civil supplies and consumer affairs, and mining departments were nabbed red-handed while taking bribes ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 5 lakh in separate cases, the spokesperson said.

Highlighting the arrests of high-ranking officers, the spokesperson said that two chief engineers of the Urban Local Bodies department were arrested for siphoning off public funds and a Haryana Civil Services officer was arrested during the investigation of a case.

A district town planner was caught accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh and a co-accused tehsildar was also arrested. While a superintending engineer of a municipal corporation and a deputy excise and taxation commissioner were caught accepting Rs 50,000 as bribes, a district horticulture officer and an executive engineer of Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (Horticulture) were caught accepting bribes of Rs 30,000.

Among those arrested by the vigilance bureau for accepting bribes of lakhs of rupees were a building inspector (Rs 5 lakh), an assistant sub inspector (Rs 4 lakh), a taxation inspector (Rs 2 lakh) and a police inspector of Gujarat police (Rs 2lakh) who accepted the bribe at Gurugram.

An executive engineer of a municipal committee, two sub-divisional officers, a district attorney, a Naib Tehsildar were some of the other officials arrested. “Six junior engineers, 10 patwaris, a taxation inspector, a police inspector, eight sub-inspectors and seven assistant sub-inspectors were also caught red-handed taking bribes, during this period,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that with the vigilance bureau “being committed to intensifying the drive against corruption…more crackdowns will follow”.

The bureau also urged people to fight against corruption and report bribery complaints on its toll-free helpline numbers 1800-180-2022 and 1064.