Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday directed officials to pay attention on improving revenues for the state government.

“Pay attention towards bettering the revenue sources, focusing on the pending arrears to the state government,” he said at a review meeting at his camp office on revenues and instructed officials, especially Collectors and Joint Collectors to generate more revenues.

“Collectors and Joint collectors should be taking responsibility in developing new strategies to bring in innovative reforms, having proper coordination between the various departments of the government, as providing better services would result in an increase in revenues,” he noted.

He told officials to meet at least once in 10 days to review revenue generation sector-wise.

The Chief Minister also directed officials to curb corruption in government departments and raised the fake challan issue currently rocking the Stamps and Registration Department, asking how the issue got ‘hidden’ until the Anti-Corruption Bureau raided those offices.

Enraged over the issue, he asked senior officials about what action has been initiated against the erring officials and asked to know why these issues didn’t come to his notice when these mistakes were happening.

“Get intelligence reports from the field level and allocate a phone number in each office to call on corruption, ensuring that all government offices have this number,” he ordered.

He also ordered officials to usher in standard operating procedures (SoPs) to eradicate corruption and monitor the process of challan payments in all government offices.

Meanwhile, officials apprised Reddy that comprehensive changes have been effected in the software, leaving no scope for corruption.

Authorities have also been instructed to completely curb alcohol-smuggling and adulteration, and take stringent action on these violations.