CHENNAI: Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-graft organisation, has raised an allegation that corruption to the tune of Rs. 136 Crore occurred in cooperative societies during the last six years.
In a statement, M Radhakrishnan of the organisation said that the government should file FIRs against persons involved in the corruption between 2015-16 and 2020-21. "Members and office bearers of cooperative societies who are involved in the corruption should be banned and money should be recovered from them," he added.
Arappor has collected details by filing RTI applications and collated the findings. A complaint has been sent to department minister KR Periyakaruppan, finance minister Thangam Thennarasu, chief secretary V Irai Anbu and others to take action against corrupted persons.
According to the RTI findings, corruption of Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 10 lakh happened in around 62 per cent of the cooperative societies. Corruption of Rs. 10 lakh to Rs. 50 lakh has occurred in 18 per cent societies.
"The government should constitute a special team and impose lifetime ban against the persons involved. FIRs should be filed against office bearers and secretaries of the cooperative societies and they should be terminated from service," Radhakrishnan urged.
He also demanded the government to recover money from the concerned persons. All the operations of the societies should be computerized.