Property of Bihar transport dept official seized on graft charges

PATNA: The Bihar administration on Friday confiscated the property of an official convicted of corruption, in keeping with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s poll promise to initiate a crackdown on corruption. Three properties belonging to Raghuvansh Kunwar — two in Patna and one Samastipur — were confiscated and orders had been issued to open schools at those premises.

“The formalities to confiscate the property of a serving IAS officer S S Verma and former Director of Raj Bhasha D N Choudhary will be completed soon,” said a government official.

The government’s move comes a day after a global survey by Transparency International pegged the levels of corruption in India to be among the worst in the world, alongside Cambodia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Senegal, Uganda and Liberia.

Bihar is able to take prompt action against corrupt bureaucrats thanks to a special legislation the state had passed last year—the Bihar Special Courts Act 2009. Unique to Bihar, the law allows for fast-track trials and convictions in the cases of corruption. Kunwar, a motor vehicles inspector in the state’s transport department, was tried and convicted under this Act.

Kunwar owned a four-storey building in Gandhinagar, Patna, apart from a four-room house in the city, and an ancestral home in Samastipur. All of them have been confiscated.

Eradicating corruption from the state has been a key theme of Nitish Kumar’s poll campaign. The chief minister is now wasting no time in sending out strong messages against corruption. In his speeches after the re-election, he had emphasised that property of corrupt bureaucrats would be confiscated and would be used as school buildings.

The state, once notorious for pervasive corruption, is also working on a Right to Service Act, which will guarantee common services such as ration card and gas connection within a stipulated time period. The law envisages penalties and other censures on officials who are unable to deliver on time.

In another important move to plug the leakage of public funds, Nitish has also put an end to the practice of granting discretionary funds to legislators. Similar to the MPLADS (Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme) programme that allows MPs to spend about Rs 2 crore at their discretion, MLAs in most of the states also get a certain amount to spend on development in their constituencies. In Bihar, each MLA gets Rs 1 crore during a five-year term.

“The image of the legislators was unnecessarily getting sullied. A new policy should instead be put in place which will provide for a more matching say to the legislators in the planning and execution of schemes,” the chief minister is learnt to have said at the Cabinet meeting.

It was noticed that widespread corruption was involved in awarding contracts under the scheme, which worked on kickbacks and resulted in substandard development work. Conservative estimates show a 40% leakage in programmes undertaken under the scheme.