The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) on Thursday said that over 3,500 officials are under its investigation for alleged involvement in corruption.
All the officials are from Group A (or Class I) services working in different Central and State Government departments, and public sector undertakings (PSU). "A total of 3,500 cases of disciplinary proceedings against Group A officers are with the Commission. These cases are at different level of proceedings as of now," CVC Secretary Nilam Sawhney adding that the CVC is taking both preventive and punitive initiatives to check corruption.
As per a latest study conducted by anti-corruption watchdog, it takes about three years for the Government departments to complete probe in corruption cases. "Earlier study has found out that departments were taking as long as eight years to complete such probe. Now the time taken has come down to 72 months.
Efforts are on to cut down the duration further," Sawhney said speaking during an event to launch an online system to monitor disciplinary cases involving Government officials.
In a first-ever massive exercise to identify the non-performers, the Centre is also reviewing the service records of about 67,000 Central Government employees including the IAS, IPS, IFS officers. At present there are about 48.85 lakh Central Government employees.
The review exercise is a part of the Government's efforts to further improve the service delivery and Governance system. According to Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) the exercise may result in punishment to those who do not conform to the code of conduct framed for them.
About 25,000 of the total are from all India and Group A services - including the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Revenue Service (IRS) among others. During the last one year the Centre forced for compulsory retirement to 129 non- performing employees which included IAS and IPS officers.