The focus is now on technology upgradation, ACB chief Atul Singh

The Anti Corruption Bureau of A.P. is now focussing on mid-level and higher level officers of all departments, as its present head — Additional Director General of Police Atul Singh — feels that cracking a few cases of corruption at the top-level could act as a deterrent.

“Of late we have cracked a number of cases, especially trap cases, but most of them were at the junior-level and the amounts seized were marginally low. So now we have decided that we need to focus on the higher ups, as that is where the real corruption happens,” he said in a chat with The Hindu on Friday (October 17).

Most of the trap cases that the department cracked pertained to the Revenue department and majority of them were mutation cases of rectification of pattadar passbooks.

“It is true that most of the departments are now technologically upgraded, but in many cases it is the technology that is manipulated to encourage corruption. Hence we are now taking up a campaign to alert the higher ups,” he said.

Mr. Singh also said that the ACB officials were also focussing on disproportionate asset cases.

“This is one area that needs more focus. But to gather evidence and develop a case, we do not have the required manpower. We need both quantitative and qualitative manpower. To stem this deficiency, we are now focussing on technology innovation,” he added.

According to him efforts are on to rope in the experts to establish a system which can be utilised to monitor the social media accounts of officers and improve surveillance.

So far, the focus has been on intelligence gathering for cyber crime and terrorism but now the department is also looking towards the corruption angle. By using technology we can not only monitor the social media, but also follow bank transactions and sale and purchase of property, to zero down on the corrupt officials, said Mr. Atul Singh.

“We are looking towards linking the benami to the concerned individual and we will use artificial intelligence to identify the corrupt officials, gather evidence and build a strong case for early conviction,” said the ACB chief.

He also said that ACB has proposed the government to increase the incentives for ACB personnel from 25% to 50%, to rope in quality manpower, on par with the Eagle team or CID. “We need honest, good, motivated and efficient personnel and officers,” he pointed out. We also need more manpower to improve our field intelligence, as we are now mostly depending on the complaints that are lodged. We also need good support from the public to root out corruption and for that we will be utilising the upcoming ‘Vigilance Awareness week’ to sensitise the public, said Mr. Atul Singh.