Say no to corruption, says CVC Vittal

MUMBAI, MARCH 30: In his usual anecdotal style, Chief Vigilance Commisioner N Vittal talked corruption at yet another forum in the city th...

MUMBAI, MARCH 30: In his usual anecdotal style, Chief Vigilance Commisioner N Vittal talked corruption at yet another forum in the city this evening. Addressing a gathering of retired people, judges and bureaucrats who were attending the S D Gupta Memorial Lecture at KC college, Vittal spoke about “Democracy, bureacracy and corruption”, putting forth suggestions to combat it.

The CVC took the opportunity to hammer home the concepts and policies he has been advocating since he took over the post. Demanding that the Constitution review committee give the citizen an additional right which ensured that they could walk “into

any public office and get corruption free service”, he added that citizen charters in government offices should also assure consumers the same thing. A loud round of applause followed.

Next, the CVC decided to list the reasons for high levels of corruption in the country. “A one lakh project becomes a three lakh project because of corruption costs,” he lamented. “An entire new industry has come up in our country, an industry that looks after the clearance of mega projects, making sure that even before a project is completely planned, the required clearances are in place. We can’t just dismiss this as a global phenomenon.”

Quoting from an annual German publication Transperancy International, the CVC highlighted that India is 73 on the corruption perception index and that if India was to move up to the position the Scandenavian countries enjoyed, both the gross domestic product and investment would grow considerably. Saying that corruption was anti-poor and anti-economy, the CVC then finally asked his audience to stand upto the menace, say no and suggested a nationwide youth group to maintain public pressure on government officials.