Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy directed officials to curb corruption in government departments and raised the fake Challan issue currently rocking the Stamps and Registration Department, asking how the issue got ‘hidden’ until the Anti-Corruption Bureau raided those offices.

He convened a reviewed meeting at his camp office at Thadepalli with collectors and joint collectors on Thursday. He expressed angry over the corruption took place in registration department by generating fake Challans. YS Jagan directed the officials to pay attention towards bettering the revenue sources, focusing on the pending arrears to the state government.

Enraged over the issue, he asked senior officials about what action has been initiated against the erring officials and asked to know why these issues didn’t come to his notice when these mistakes were happening. Get intelligence reports from the field level and allocate a phone number in each office to call on corruption, ensuring that all government offices have this number, he ordered.

YS Jagan ordered officials to usher in standard operating procedures (SoPs) to eradicate corruption and monitor the process of challan payments in all government offices.

Collectors and Joint collectors should be taking responsibility in developing new strategies to bring in innovative reforms, having proper coordination between the various departments of the government, as providing better services would result in an increase in revenues, he noted. He instructed the officials to meet at least once in 10 days to review revenue generation sector-wise.

Meanwhile, officials appraised CM that comprehensive changes have been effected in the software, leaving no scope for corruption. Authorities have also been instructed to completely curb alcohol-smuggling and adulteration, and take stringent action on these violations.