Pranab calls for concerted fight against corruption

Worried over 'widespread and deep routed' corruption in the society, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday called for a concerted war against the menace on all fronts.

"Corruption is widespread and deep routed in our society . . .Corruption is a war that has to be fought on all fronts and in a concerted and coordinated manner by all stakeholders," he said while delivering the valedictory address at the two-day regional conference of the ADB-OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and Pacific.

Recalling the steps taken by the government to deal with the issue, Mukherjee said, "Our efforts to tackle this menace have been increasing (and)

we are committed to the goal of achieving zero tolerance against corruption."

He, however, admitted that there were issues of slackness in implementation of of existing laws and lack of coordination between different agencies which have overlapping mandate.

". . .policy gaps such as in the area of election funding and governance failure in several areas of public services delivery...have contributed to the pervasiveness of this phenomenon," he said.

Image: Pranab Mukherjee