Bhubaneswar, Oct. 27: The state government, which is battling to come clean on various scandals, including the deposit collection scam, today said 15 special vigilance courts had been set up across the state for expeditious trial of the corruption related cases.

Attending a function to celebrate the vigilance week, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said: “The conviction percentage in vigilance cases has reached a record 46 per cent this year. Vigilance courts have convicted 503 public servants, while 137 persons have been dismissed from service on grounds of corruption in the past five years in the state.”

Maintaining that corruption in high places badly affected the morale of subordinate public servants and had larger impact in the society, Naveen said: “The state government is putting emphasis on maintenance of the highest standard of integrity and probity among senior public servants, including those holding high political offices.”

The vigilance has also registered a case against former director-general of police Prakash Mishra, who is working at the Centre as special secretary (internal security). While the vigilance maintained that the case had been lodged on corruption charges, Mishra said the case was politically motivated to scuttle his chances to becoming the CBI director.

The chief minister said: “Odisha is the first state in the country to enact the special courts act, a step towards achieving probity. The government’s endeavour has received nationwide recognition as states such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have enacted legislations on the line of the Odisha Special Courts Act towards achieving the goal.”

Under this act, two special courts have been established in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. “So far, 176 cases of corruption have been transferred to the special courts for expeditious trial and 20 accused persons holding high public offices have been convicted,” Naveen said.

The chief minister further said the government had initiated several e-governance projects to promote greater transparency in government services and for the people’s convenience. An online portal Odisha Online has been introduced to provide public service to facilitate online payment of electricity bills and water bills.

To check corruption at the ground level, the state government has also decided to make online the payment of holding tax, trade licence and issue of birth and death certificates. “It is a matter of great satisfaction that such initiatives have yielded satisfactory results in improving the quality of life of the common people. A lot of areas of public services are yet to be covered,” said the chief minister.