Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi speaks on the phone while addressing reporters after his janata darbar in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Aug. 23: At a time when the Centre appears to be on the backfoot on the corruption issue, particularly in the wake of the Anna Hazare hunger strike, the Bihar government has urged people to join hands in a drive to expose the corrupt ones.

The government, in fact, has urged people to step forward and give clues about public servants whom they believe to have amassed assets using unfair means.

“Asset details of all ministers and state government employees right down to Grade III employees are there on the government website. People should use this information to compare the actual assets of public servants with the declared ones and if they found any discrepancy, they can bring the matter to the notice of the vigilance department on the basis of which inquiries would be conducted,” deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi told reporters in the post-janata darbar press briefing today.

Modi said after bringing the asset details of public servants in public domain, just one complaint had been received. “More people should come forward and help the government in bringing the corrupt to book,” he added.

Thereafter, Modi went on to give details of the steps been taken by the NDA government to tame corruption.

“We have set up secret service fund and reward fund for those providing authentic information about the corrupt,” he said, adding that informa-nts could get rewards up to Rs 50,000, if chargesheets are filed in disproportionate assets cases lodged on the basis of information provided by them.

He said similar provisions have been made to reward informants in cases related to misuse of funds meant for government schemes and if the charges are proved in such cases and the complaint leads to saving public money, then the reward amount could go up to Rs 5 lakh.

Modi said the government has made provisions for giving some reward to investigating officers and public prosecutors in such cases as encouragement amount.

Apart from rewards, the government has also made a provision of giving actual travel expenses and a daily allowance of Rs 200 per day to non-government witnesses who have to travel to court for deposition during the course of the hearing of such cases.

Sharing details about the achievements in tracking down corrupt public servants so far, Modi said: “So far, 87 DA cases have been filed against corrupt public servants out of which 19 cases were related to confiscation of property worth Rs 23.22 crore amassed through corrupt means. In five such cases, the court has already ordered confiscation of property of corrupt officials.”

The confiscation order has been issued in accordance with the provisions of Bihar Special Court Act, 2009, which was challenged in the Supreme Court that refused to put a stay on the implementation of the Act till disposal of the matter by it. Of the five cases, three accused had moved Patna High Court, challenging the order and one of the applicants, S.S. Verma, a suspended IAS officer, got a jolt when the high court recently quashed his petition and directed him to surrender his property to the state government within a month.

“In wake of the high court ruling, the government has started the process of confiscating Verma’s property and the Patna district magistrate has already sent a notice to him in this regard,” Modi said.

He said after formation of the NDA government, a special drive had been launched to tame the corrupt government servants and between 2006 and July 2011, a total of 462 trap cases were executed by the state vigilance bureau in which 520 persons were arrested and a total sum of Rs 2.86 crore was recovered from the arrested.