Prime minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday expressed anguish at the "personal attacks" on him the opposition has made in its comments on corruption.

While he asserted that fighting corruption is a collective national responsibility and that he will do everything to clean the system, he also said, “It is beneath my dignity to respond to personal attacks,” said the prime minister.

“It hurts me when charges are levelled against me,” he added.

Speaking in the lok sabha on Thursday, Singh challenged the opposition to prove that he was a beneficiary of corruption.. “Let opposition probe to find out if I have benefitted from corruption,” said he.

He maintained that corruption needed to be tackled from various angles and there was a need to overhaul the public administration in the country. “There are leakages in public welfare schemes. We need to devise new systems and methodologies to ensure that the public distribution system is free of leakages,” said he.