VACB’s ‘Operation Parpidam’ exposes widespread municipal corruption in Kerala’s construction sector
The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) in Kerala has unearthed a widespread bribery racket to expedite building permit applications, overlook zoning violations, facilitate false reporting
The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) in Kerala has unearthed a widespread bribery racket to expedite building permit applications, overlook zoning violations, facilitate false reporting of floor area ratio to defraud the government of tax revenue and regularise structurally compromised illegal constructions, thereby imperilling public safety. Named ‘Operation Parpidam’, the agency’s Statewide inspections to expose systemic municipal corruption also detailed how local networks of corrupt officials and their agents have significantly escalated the cost of construction for ordinary families, a significant section of the population, who struggle to navigate the cumbersome building code and allied red-tape in their uphill and often cash-strapped effort to put an affordable roof over their heads. Investigators noted that, in contrast, the corrupt network that permeates municipal offices across the State ensures that lawbreakers, including commercial builders, could bribe their way past building violations, including legitimising additional “ghost floors” that find no mention in the approved plan, under-reporting of floor area to save on building tax, lack of the mandatory setback from the road for firefighting operations, and walling parking space for business and rental purposes.
Manoj Abraham, Director General, VACB, who ordered the broader inquiry into the supposedly ingrained illegal practices involving inspectors and the construction industry, told The Hindu that the operation covered six Municipal Corporations, 30 municipalities and 24 grama panchayats. He said Operation Parpidam uncovered details of significant financial kickbacks, including regular backhander payments through digital cash transfers, to officials and intermediaries amounting to lakhs of rupees. Procedural violations Another investigator said the VACB inspections exposed widespread corruption and brazen procedural violations in the grant of occupancy certificates, building numbers, assessment of building tax, authentication of floor area, and regularisation of unauthorised constructions. He said the VACB found that corrupt municipal officials had issued residential building numbers for edifices used for commercial purposes to defraud the government of critical tax revenue.
They also issued occupancy certificates for illegal constructions. He said delayed or stalled action against unlawful constructions in population-dense urban localities was another major avenue for municipal corruption. Indictments against officials He said indictments were likely under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) against at least 30 officials, including municipal secretaries, and so-called “building consultancy services”, which offer hassle-free official sanction for sizeable under-the-table payments to engineers, architects, contractors and builders. “The scale of corruption is mammoth. In Kunnumkulam municipality in Thrissur district, the VACB discovered that an official had received ₹21,50,000 as surreptitious digital cash transfers from contractors, licencees, and their shadowy agents in the past 12 months alone”, he said. Another investigator said the VACB raiding team found that a building inspector attached to the Fort Kochi Zonal Office under the Kochi municipal Corporation had accepted digital payments totalling ₹12,69,000 as graft for permits, licences, building plan approvals, and regularisation of unlawful constructions.
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