Mumbai, Aug 31: Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said that corruption has always been associated with contracting.

While addressing a function in Mumbai on Tuesday, Ahluwalia said that large scale corruption is associated with contracting and use of discretionary power to favour some people.

"What is larger scale corruption? That clearly is of two types and in it is associated with mis-performance in government contracting and is associated with discretionary use of discretion to favour some people, which have become more through a big issue," Ahluwalia said.

"Obviously, corruption associated with contracting and has always been there, but I think it's becoming, a lot of it is now much more in the public eye and I think we should recognize by the way that it is in the public eye because the institutions of transparency that have been set up are actually working," he added.

Commenting on the Lokpal Bill, he said that the Bill is in the Parliament and they are trying to strengthen the investigating agencies with the ability to probe and prosecute corrupt people.

"What can be done clearly is to strengthen the ability to investigate and prosecute people for to be involved in corruption. The debates that have been going on, on the Lokpal as an institution, the Lokayukta, now this is before Parliament, so we wait to see what comes out of that," Ahluwalia said.

"But that is clearly in the area of trying to strengthen the investigative wings and the ability independently to do this investigation, that's very important," he added. (ANI)