The rise in prices in the country is not only happening in terms of fuel, essential goods, property, gold etc. There is also a huge jump in the bribe amounts demanded by corrupt officials. Earlier, the amount of corruption was limited to thousands, but now it has turned into lakhs and crores. There are also practices where the official who receives a bribe of lakhs gives a share of that money to the higher-ups. Therefore, even if there are complaints, there are people at the top to settle it, so many people fearlessly carry on with their bribery business. The bribes they take are initially paid by the clients from their own pockets, but the burden of that money eventually falls on the heads of the people.
When you have to pay lakhs monthly etc. for quarrying, naturally the price of rock will increase. Wherever the government has tightened the rules, the officials demand more money. At the Kottarakkara taluk office, a tehsildar and his team demanded Rs 10 lakh from the quarry owners. Apart from this, they were also demanded a monthly payment of Rs 2 lakh when the quarry starts working. The SI and the SHO of Valancherry station also asked for Rs 22 lakh to save an agent providing explosives from a case. Mechanisms set up to prevent corruption are activated only when someone makes a complaint.
After demanding a bribe of Rs 10 lakh, Tehsildar MK Ajikumar, Deputy Tehsildar V Anilkumar and driver Manoj have been suspended pending investigation by the Principal Secretary of the Revenue Department. It has also been decided to terminate the services of another driver, Manoj, who is a contract employee. It is unique that they were caught not by the vigilance, but by a group of high-ranking officials of the revenue department formed on the instructions of the minister. Posing as an agent, the Under Secretary of the Revenue Department approached the tehsildar. Most of the bribe takers do not discuss the money directly with the client. All that is done by contract drivers and others.
The same thing happened here. The investigation was initiated following a complaint from KJ Radhakrishna Pillai of Sreenilayam in Kulakkada in Kottara that the tehsildar had demanded a bribe of Rs 1 lakh to give a pass from the revenue department for running a brick company. In any case, the under secretary of the revenue department and his team, who caught them deserve appreciation. Those who take lakhs like this should be dismissed from the service. Apart from that, the government should also take steps to confiscate their properties. If that happens, this corruption may be curbed at least a little bit.