Mumbai, May 14 (TOI): Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has initiated a series of measures to provide a corruption-free and transparent administration, but it seems erring employees at the lower level have found out novel ideas to secure bribes. Last week, a section officer in the Nashik Information Commission office was caught accepting a bribe from a school principal, and on Tuesday, two clerks in the education branch of the Aurangabad zilla parishad were caught accepting a Rs 20,000 bribe from two teachers.


A few months ago, the two teachers had approached the district administration seeking interdistrict transfer from Aurangabad to Ahmednagar. Their proposals were approved by the competent authority and orders were issued, but were not delivered. The teachers were asked to approach clerks Sunil More and Rajendra Chavan for securing the orders. Initially, they were told to pay Rs 15,000 each for their orders to be issued, but the amount was later reducted to Rs 10,000 as one teacher is poor and the other physically handicapped.

A senior bureaucrat said there is an alarming rise in corruption cases across the state, despite the fact that the state has initiated a series of measures to end corruption. "All correspondence and processing of files is done online, but from the cases filed in the last six months, it seems that bribe-seekers are not scared of law-enforcing agencies."

aThe bureaucrat said besides the arrest of the Nashik section officer, additional tribal development commissioner Milind Gawade too was arrested for demanding money to settle promotion cases in his own department. "In our opinion, all cases registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act should be fast-tracked and disposed of within six months," he added. The bureaucrat said officials who have been caught accepting bribe or convicted under the Act continue in service despite the CM's order. "Look at the information on the ACB website. Most of the persons who were caught and suspended or convicted are in the service, and many of them in the same department."