Graft a hurdle for country’s development

Vijayawada: Speakers at a workshop on ‘My Vision –Corruption-free India’ expressed their belief that India will be corruption-free with the technology. The workshop was held here on Thursday as part of Vigilance Awareness Week being observed by the Income Tax Department from October 30 to November 4.

Participating in the workshop, Prof LSS Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of Koneru Lakshmaiah University(KLU), exuded confidence that corruption was an obstacle for development of the country. As 60 per cent of country’s population are youth, the country would become a super power once it weeds out corruption.

Bhupal Reddy, Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, said that preventive measures are being taken at present to plug loopholes, “Earlier we had to fight with defects and worked on cure.” Citizen’s Charter of IT department was a declaration of its vision, mission and standards of service delivery, he added.

S K Senthil Kumar, Deputy Commissioner, explained how the tax system became friendly to tax payer over a period of time since nineties. Gaddam Satyanarayana of Tax Bar Association said that tax in the US and European countries was comparatively higher. A tax-friendly policy was the necessity, he explained.

V Rama Mohan Reddy, Chairman of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, said that corruption was rampant in society. People should start respecting IT officials rather than fearing about them, he felt. Muttavarapu Muralikrishna of Chamber of Commerce was of the view that reforms should come from public first. He, however, said comfort levels of tax payers increased due to technology. Vakkalagadda Bhaskara Rao, president of Chamber of Commerce, hoped that GST would bring corruption-free society.

Malineni Rajaiah, president of Andhra Chamber of Commerce, believed that liberal laws of the country are the gateway for the corrupt. While seven crore people were paying taxes, another 10 crore should be encouraged to pay tax to improve the situation, he added.

Prof Rajendra Prasad, Vice-Chancellor of Acharya Nagarjuna University, stated that one should have a strong will to act against corruption. “Authority from within comes if one believes in corrupt-free society,” be observed. K Damodar Rao, CGM of BSNL, and Ch Vijaya Raghava Charyulu, Director of State Institute of Temple Administration, T Ratna Srinivas, representative of Art of Living, and others were present.