Imphal, October 26: Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh has stated corruption is a societal malady which need to be up rooted completely for development and enjoying of its fruit by all the people equally in the society.

In his message to the people ahead of the Vigilance Awareness Week observance scheduled to be held from November 1 to 6, Ibobi said corruption has been a malady in the past and is still prevalent, after more than a half century of independence.

With the passage of time, it has become not only broad-based but more refined and sophisticated so much so that there has been hardly any aspect of society which has not been permeated by this malady, Ibobi said.

The victims of this malady have been invariably the poor section of the society, he added.

Unless this ever growing societal scourge is stemmed, if not completely rooted out, a variety of programmes taken up by the Government for the benefit of the poor section of the society would not get their desired results, the Chief Minister�s message said, adding that the welfare State envisaged for out country by the founding father would remain a distant dream as ever.

Observing that a problem of such magnitude calls for a sustained and concerted efforts not only from the Government but the general public as well, Chief Minister said a society, for that matter a State, free of corruption could only be conceivable where practices of corruption in all activities of the State and Society are frowned upon both at the societal and State level.

For this internalization of value system consistent with the above proposition is to be carried out at both societal and State level.

And this process of normative re-orientation is to be propped up by the stringent punitive laws and enforcement of the same against any official found guilty of corrupt acts, Ibobi said in his message.

He further maintained that having fully appreciated both the latent and the manifest perversion that this societal malady could cause to and resolved to fight the malady, the State Government has directed all its Departments to observe the Vigilance Awareness Week by focusing on education of the customers and clients on the Vigilance Department and its function so as to become an active ally in combating this social malady.

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