CBI Nets Corrupt Babus with SMS Initiative
By CXOtoday Staff
Mumbai, Nov 12, 2008 1502 hrs IST

The Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) two-month-old initiative, requesting mobile users across the country to lodge their complaints against corrupt officials through SMSs, has kicked off. Till now it has processed 500 complaints, and trapped 40 government officials at the junior and mid-level across the country, including two in Delhi, in the last two months.

The central agency had roped in nine mobile service providers for the SMS drive, asking customers to register complaints against bribe takers. The campaign got a good start and caught a senior income-tax employee based in Cochin, the branch manager of Union Bank of India, and a railway official. All of them had demanded bribe for getting work done. Thanks to CBI's initiative, aggrieved persons could send text messages to the bureau's anti corruption cell ensuring prompt action.

"This new initiative will serve as deterrence to proliferation of corrupt practices at common places. We are encouraging the public to be a part of the process. The service providers too have agreed to take up this cause as part of their social service advertising and, therefore, the campaign has been taken up by them free of cost," R.K. Gaur, press information officer for CBI said.

The bureau has tied up with service providers such as Airtel, Vodafone, MTNL, BSNL, Tata Indicom, Reliance, Idea, Aircel, and BPL for the campaign.

The SMS campaigns have been undertaken in most regions of the country, including Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Patna, Ranchi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Bhopal, and Chandigarh.


Related links:
Indian Agencies to Get Trained on Online Crimes