On the completion of its two years in office, the Congress-led UPA government on Sunday promised to hit hard against corruption and punish the guilty involved in scams.
With allegations of corruption being levelled against its government and MPs, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi jointly released the report titled “Government of the UPA: Report to the People” on Sunday night at the former’s official residence.
The PM assured that the guilty in scams will be punished as the due process of law has already begun and steps would be taken to prevent such scams in the future. In her brief remarks at the function, Mrs Gandhi said, “We will take the issue of corruption head on and demonstrate through actions, and not words, that we mean what we say.”
She lamented that unfortunately the track record of Opposition parties in taking action against corrupt is no match to the Congress and the UPA. Touching upon the issue of governance and corruption, Dr Singh said, “The developments have caused many concerns among citizens to worry about the state of governance and the pervasiveness of corruption. We will punish those that are guilty as the due process of law has already caught up.”
In his speech, Dr Singh also recalled the “conjunction of several developments” related to the 2G spectrum, procurement and contracting issues related to the Commonwealth Games and similar issues in state governments. He said many of these issues have surfaced because of “our system of institutional oversight and a free press”. He assured that the government will bring about systemic changes that would help in improving governance and curbing corruption. The report card talks at length about the constitution of a GoM on corruption in January this year and the introduction of the whistleblower bill.
“As one of the impediments felt in tackling corruption is lack of adequate protection to complainants, the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosure Bill, 2010 (whistleblower bill) has been introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 26, 2010,” it added.
“With a view to ensuring full compliance with United Nations Convention Against Corruption Convention, the Prevention of Bribery of Foreign Public Officials and Officials of Public International Organisations Bill 2011 has been introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 25, 2011,” it said. The report covers many specific sectors like economic situation, agriculture, rural development, education, external and internal challenges.

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UPA credibility has hit rock bottom: BJP
Age Correspondent
New Delhi

May 22: The BJP on Sunday alleged that the UPA’s credibility has “hit rock bottom” and the second year of UPA-2 had been a “nightmare” due to its dismal track record. The party said the UPA failed to check corruption, tackle economic challenges like price rise and failed in fighting Naxal violence.
Commenting on the UPA-2’s completion of its second year at the Centre, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said: “The UPA has had a dismal track record in the last year. It was a nightmare for the government. A year which any government would love to forget. We fail to understand what is there for it to celebrate.”
Mr Jaitley insisted that it was a “wasted opportunity” for the government as its credibility has “hit rock bottom”.
Mr Jaitley maintained that the Manmohan Singh government had failed in all areas of governance.