33 OFFICES RAIDED

Diwali ‘gifts’: DVAC seizes over ₹18L cash, liquor worth ₹6.5L

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:31,10,2021

Directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption (DVAC) officials recovered ₹18.2 lakh unaccounted cash, liquor worth ₹6.5 lakh and 36 boxes of crackers as Diwali gifts during surprise raids at 33 government offices in the state on Friday evening.

The raids conducted simultaneously were held in 14 departments — TNEB, transport, registration, fire and rescue, commercial tax, police, land reforms, taluk supply office, Tasmac, rural development, drug control, industrial safety and health, municipality and DTCP.

DVAC officials are planning for a mega raid in other places on Monday and Tuesday to prevent the last round of Diwali gifts being given to government officials.

Earlier, DVAC director and director-general of police P Kandaswamy had conducted meetings with subordinate officers to gather details of the corrupt officials in all the departments.

They scrutinised the officials based on their rapport with businessmen and politicians. The officers monitored the officials call log details and finalised the list of 60 officials as per the priority and the raid was kickstarted.

In a similar raid conducted in 2020, anti-corruption officials had seized ₹4.30 crore and 519 sovereigns of gold jewellery in the guise of festival gifts from government officials .