The Central Bureau of Investigation finds itself in a great difficulty to cope up with so many scams that broke out in 2010 as it does not have enough manpower for simultaneous probes, more so with many of its sleuths already tied up in concluding investigations into other cases in hand.

Every scam that comes to light is referred to the CBI's anti-corruption branch (ACB) that faces an acute manpower shortage, affecting fast probe into all tasks at hand as the sleuths are shifted from one scam to another, be it 2G scam, Commonwealth Games scam, Adarsh Society scam or other scandals as per pressure from the government or the Supreme Court.

The key sleuths assigned to each of the scams in hand are hard-pressed as they have to not only conduct raids all over the country but then literally burn the midnight oil to go through mountain of documents running into lakhs of pages and other evidences like tapes seized in these raids. Besides, they have to be also present at every questioning of the people and recording their statements.

There are just 80 inspectors and additional inspectors and a little over 100 constables in the ACB. While pressing the government to depute more personnel from the central police organisations to cope up with the increased work, the CBI has shifted some 20 inspectors from its economic offence wing and banking and securities fraud cell to ACB to help investigate the mega scams. The agency is also taking help from the Enforcement Directorate to probe the money-laundering angle, especially the hawala transactions.

One team of the CBI's anti-corruption branch is in Chennai investigating the 2G scam against former telecom minister A Raja and his relatives and aides whose premises they raided early this month and now busy recording their statements.

Another team was sent to Mumbai and Pune for searches in the CWG scam as the agency cannot depend on its staff in Mumbai office since they may not have all the background of the investigations being conducted in Delhi. Yet another team of 20 sleuths is tied up in Ranchi tying up all information to file a case against former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda and five of his Cabinet colleagues for possessing disproportionate assets running into crores of rupees.

The CBI officers say a separate team is required to be constituted to probe each scam and a lot many sleuths are needed in each case that involves the probe all over the country and at times even abroad as in case of the CWG's Queen Baton Relay scandal.

A senior officer, who is not able to attend to the family needs as he is tied up even on Saturdays and Sundays and holidays coordinating several probes, is quoted ruing that it is very tough for all making life miserable as cases are enormous and they have to do so many things simultaneously.

"We don’t have time to breathe and everybody is as busy as a bee. We have so many things to do in a limited time. For instance, we have to submit a status report on the spectrum scandal to the Supreme Court early February, coping with hundreds of tapes of telephone conversations, large number of files and thousands of incriminating documents recovered," another officer said.