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Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday intensified his fight against corruption in the state by issuing orders to prosecute 11 corrupt officers and confiscate their properties, according to state government officials. The date for the symbolic gesture against corruption was 11/11/11.
On the third day of his Seva Yatra in Bettiah, district headquarters of West Champaran, Kumar cleared pending files about corruption cases against the eleven officers.
"I was asked to sign files related to corruption cases against corrupt officers exactly at 11 am today by two top officers of my secretariat," Kumar told media personnel after holding his janata darbaar at Bettiah.
Kumar admitted that the files were put together by Chanchal Kumar and Atish Chandra -- IAS officers working as his special secretaries. "I only signed on the file for approval to initiate action against 11 corrupt officers," Kumar said.
An official in the Chief Minister's Office refused to reveal the names of the eleven officers.
Additional Director General (vigilance) P K Thakur said that his department had sent several such files to the CMO, to be cleared for prosecution and charge-sheet.
In September this year, Bihar set an example for the rest of India by setting up a school in the confiscated palatial building of tainted IAS officer Shiv Shankar Verma.
It was the first time in India that a school had been set up at the confiscated property of a corrupt government babu.
Kumar repeatedly promised during his election campaign last year that his government would take over the houses of corrupt public servants and convert them into schools.
Kumar had said that the confiscation of Verma's house sent out a loud and clear message to public servants that buildings and assets purchased using ill-gotten money will not remain with them.
Bihar's Human Resource Development ministry had shifted a primary school at Rukunpura in Patna to Verma's confiscated property.