The Local-Self Government Department (LSGD) of Kerala is in the news for all the wrong reasons. In the third index of the state Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, the LSGD has been ranked the most corrupt.
The Kerala Anti-Corruption Index (KAI) shows that the LSGD accounts for 10.34% of corruption among the various state departments. The Revenue Department with 9.24% share in overall corruption comes second in the index.
The KAI categorises departments as those with very high corruption, high corruption, medium corruption, low corruption and very low corruption. The Public Wokrs comes third with 5.32 % followed by the Health and Social Welfare with 4.98 %. There are 13 departments in the very high corruption category. The KAI was published on the official website of the VACB on Wednesday. The Research and Training Wing of the VACB has done the research for the preparation of the index, the website said.
However the VACB is silent on the methodology adopted by it to arrive at the corruption indices relating to various departments. According to The Hindu report, the VACB merely states that the indices relate to 61 departments. The website explains "Out of the 61 departments, if total corruption in 100, how much percentage of that total corruption in Kerala is contributed by this particular department.... For example, LSGD is responsible for 10.34 per cent of the total corruption whereas Police Department accounts for 4.66 per cent of the total corruption in the government sector in Kerala."