Transparency Measures to Fight Corrruption

1.Fraud in Government Sponsored/Subsidized Solar Power Installations.
The present technology of Solar in the market today only gives 14-18% conversion efficiency from the Solar Panels under optimum sunlight conditions and hence the cost of such installations still appears to be very high and so such costly devices should be installed only for off-grid locations where there is no electricity. It was seen that Assam was the highest recipient of MNRE funds in the year 2013 and in the past 10 years of previous congress regime it is seen that most of the Solar Installations that were actually installed on the ground were all defunct pointing towards a possible scam. The practice being followed by solar companies in Solar installations connected with the grid is deceptive in nature since in absence of any Bi-Directional metering in most locations we do not have any means to find the generated output of Power in such solar installations or workability of such Solar Power device so installed in our country, resulting in a mere fructuous activity. In fact, Solar power installation subsidies of the system installed should be based purely on its generating output tested without any connection to the storage Battery and Grid for a minimum period of 1 hour in optimum sunlight condition of the particular location and then fitted with Bi-Directional Meters to ascertain future generation .This shall stop fraud and check unsustainable claims made by the solar companies and thus prevent drainage of state exchequer by way of subsidies. Today, all though out our country we find ample proof of large scale solar scheme installations initiated by the government as either defunct or operating in very low or any recognizable efficiency and which are mostly run by the power from the Grid rather than from Solar power. The need of the hour is to appoint a special third party investigating team excluding personals from MNRE to take stock of the actual assessment of power generated in the existing solar installations to justify Government subsidies in such installations.


2. Integrity Pact Adoption in States & application of GFR & Procurement Rules for Centrally funded Schemes:
The Integrity Pact(IP) , a vigilance tool first promoted by Transparency International has been found useful and in 2007 the CVC recommended the IP concept and encouraged its adoption and implementation in respect of all major procurements of Government organization and accordingly all PSU,s and central government departments have adopted the pact . The pact should be also be recommended for adoption and implementation in all state governments or at least in BJP ruled states to ensure transparency under your New India Initiative. Alternately, all procurement of goods and services under any Centrally funded scheme should be done on the guidelines of GFR Rules,Central Procurement Rules and standard Integrity Pact.
3 Strict Implementation of Section 4 of RTI Act2005.
Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act lays down the information which should be disclosed by Public Authorities on a suo motu or proactive basis. Section 4(2) and Section 4(3) prescribe the method of dissemination of this information. The purpose of suo motu disclosures under Section 4 is to place large amount of information in public domain on a proactive basis to make the functioning of the Public Authorities more transparent and also to reduce the need for filing individual RTI applications.
A guideline for Implementation of suo motu disclosure under Section 4 of RTI Act, 2005 was issued vide Circular no 1/6/2011-R dated 15.4.2013 by Ministry of Personal ,public grievances and pensions to all central Government organizations and Chief Secretary’s of all states/Union territories but it is seen that the same is not implemented in most states . Moreover majority of the websites of various Ministries/Departments of states like Assam and other North Eastern states are out of date with no information for the public.There is an urgent need to implement section 4 of the RTI Act 2005 in the states for proactive disclosure of information at least for activities and funds related to centrally sponsored schemes.
4. Introduction of a False Claim Act to protect State Resources.
A False Claim Act similar to the one prevalent in United States should be brought in to our country to check corruption as part of the “New India Initiative” program. The False Claims Act of the US prohibits an individual, company, or other entity from knowingly causing, presenting, or submitting a false claim to the government to obtain government money or property or reduce an obligation owed to the government. Under this False Claims Act, private individuals may bring a qui tam action on behalf of the state/country to seek recovery of civil monetary penalties at prescribed penalty rates per violation and up to three times the amount of damages sustained by the government due to fraud.
This False Claim Act shall encourage whistleblowers to report fraud and pursue False Claims Act actions which shall prove to be an essential enforcement mechanism to government recoveries. In recognition of the crucial role played by qui tam whistleblowers, the False Claims Act so enacted may provide whistleblowers to share in up to 30 percent of the recovered money obtained by the government through settlement or trial.