recovering the revenue misappropriated by the state officers

Recovering the revenue misappropriated by the state officers - yukta-apahRtasya prati-Anayanam

kOSa pUrvA sarvArambhAH - the basis of all the beginnings is the treasury. The state officers working in the revenue department need to be carefully supervised.

Typically, they may get involved in 7 types of misappropriations of power -
1. pratibandham - Not collecting the income in right amount. Not adding it to treasury.
2. prayOgam - Using the money in the treasury and earning "interest" on it. Or doing business with the items belong to the treasury.
3. avasthAram - Delaying the collection (by taking bribe from the party) or Demanding collection before the due date (for harassing parties)
4. parihApaNam - reducing the budgeted income; increasing the budgeted expenditure.
5. upabhOgam - using the money/things in the treasury for own enjoyment.
6. parivartanam - replacing a good quality item belonging to the treasury with a similar low quality item.
7. apahAram - twisting the accounts to show lower balance.

There are 40 techniques used by the officers to do the apaharaNam.

1. Recording income accrued earlier as later.
2. that which came later as recorded as earlier
3. not collecting the taxes from the parties
4. collecting taxes from the parties who do not need to pay tax
5. not recording the collected taxes
6. Showing something which has not been realized as realized.
7. showing what has been carried out little as a lot
8. showing what is carried out much as little
9. showing one thing as carried out in the place of another thing
10. showing one party in the place of another party
11. showing something as paid when it is not paid
12. showing something as not paid when it is paid
13. delaying a payment
14. showing lesser payment in the place of more payment
15. showing more payment in place of a smaller payment
16. giving something instead of some other thing which need to be given
17. paying someone instead of someone else.
18. showing something delivered as made out as not delivered
19. showing something nod delivered as made out as delivered
20. not paying the for the forest produce and adding it to the treasury
21. not showing a purchase made in the records
22. showing an aggregate amount as individual amounts;
23. showing individual transaction as an aggregate
24. replacing a pricey item with a cheap item
25. replacing a cheap item with a pricey item
26. inflating the cost of items
27. deflating the cost of some items
28.  increasing the number of day (of a T&M contract)
29. decreasing the number of days (reverse of above)
30. converting a monthly contract to year (thereby 10 months is calculated as 1 year etc., )
31. taking advantage of days in a month while calculating
32. accounting in a wrong income head (ayamukham)
33. accounting in wrong expense head
34. inflating the number of people worked on a project
35. showing discrepancy in performance of people (employing a designer instead of an architect)
36. discrepancy in quality of goods used.
37. discrepancies in prices of goods
38. discrepancies in the weights of goods
39. discrepancies in the dimensions
40. discrepancies in the number of units

When any of such techniques are suspected, the subordinate officers, the store keeper, the accountant, the receiving party, the giving party, the mediator if any, the consultant, and the assistant consultant if any need to be individually interrogated.

Also, when the investigation is going on, there should be an announcement made to the public "such and such officer is being investigated for misappropriation; if any one of you are impacted please come forward and get the compensation" so that all the instances of the corruption will come out.

When the officer completely denies the charges and proved to be guilty even in one case, he should be liable for all the losses.

When the officer agrees some of the allegations, then he need to be tried in all other cases and recover only when he is proven guilty.

After the officer in question proved guilty, if the informer should be rewarded with some amount (1/6th) of recovered money.

If an informer withdraws the complaint after the officer proved guilty, even the informer should be punished harshly.



This brings us to the end of 8th chapter of 2nd book of artha SAstra.