MY TAKE ON CORRUPTION

Hi,

Corruption is now endemic to our society. So much so that it's almost a part of our DNA and to that extent difficult to weed out.

However, this discussion is much more on the issues, root causes and probable solution.

Here it goes, maybe not in the same order, but yet, let me cite some reasons why it happens (again not in the order of priority.)

A. Government employees are lower paid as compared to their peers in private sectors. Money is one of the most important aspect of anyone's life. For a government employee, the responsibility is larger than the peer's responsibility in private sector, yet the pay is lower. This becomes a primary driver of corruption.

B. Monopolistic practices - absolute power. Government holds the keys to any permission, policy making and is almost a sole discretionary power. Hence it's offices are well aware that a common man has nowhere else to go but to the same office again and again to get the work done, be it genuine or otherwise. This gives the government officials immense clout, which in turn gives fillip to corruption.

C. Lack of transparency - For any application submitted to government, there is no accountability or tracing of the application through it's life cycle. It is very normal to hear a response 'file abhi mil nahi rahi hein, aap 2 din baad mein aao'. Hence, a common man has to run from pillar to post in order to get response to his/her application. Grease a palm and see how efficient the system becomes.

D. Lack of multiple watchdogs and connivance of existing watchdogs - There are certain entities like ACB that are supposed to be a watchdog to keep such practices in tow. However, it is equally true that these office are as much tainted with corruption as any other, being a part of the same set up. Apart from that, even if there are watch dogs they are far removed from the ground and hence issues never really reach them.

E. Lack of SLAs for any process (baring a few) - suppose there is an application made for any purpose, there is nowhere in the government a said SLA for dealing with the application. If there is an SLA, the citizens are not educated and an undue advantage of ignorance is taken by the governing mechanism.

There are many such issues that culminate into this demon called corruption and keep it well fed / growing.

Having mentioned these reasons, let us also look at a few solutions. Before that, let me classify corruption into 2 types.

A. Corruption that is done even for availing of basic rights and amenities. Example. I want to avail of a ration card but I'll have to pay a certain amount of money to avail of it. This kind of corruption is the most debilitating. It affects the larger mass, infact most of us in the forum would have suffered from this form of corruption at some juncture or other in our lives. It is imperative to ensure that this gets weeded out first.

B. Corruption that is done either to prevent bearing consequences of a wrong doing or to facilitate a wrong doing. This kind of corruption tantamount to lawlessness and very much shakes the faith of citizens in governance. It is also a more serious breach of law.

Onto solutions.

1. Effective watchdogs - Ideally such watchdogs should be autonomous or quasi autonomous with reporting into the government only at the level of either a cabinet minister or the Prime Minister itself. These watchdogs should be a committee comprising part government officials, part retired but upright govt officials, part upright citizens - Such a composition would ensure that representation is there from all walks of life, multiplicity of members would ensure difficulty in connivance hence increase the efficacy of the watch dog.

2. Swift action and severe penalty. Set up corruption courts with judges having mandate of not allowing any case to linger beyond x number of days. They should have, in the decision making body, some members of the watchdog to ensure fair trial. This kind of mechanism will be very effective in dealing with (A) kind of corruption.

3. Bring most of the work online, and in public domain. For example if I make an application for any work with any dept - I should be able to track the status of my application with remarks of pertinent officials on it for delay / dis qualification or timeline to action on the application. Let this site also have the relevant SLAs shown to the citizen.

4. Again a very important point. We always think of penalizing the person who is a recipient of favors in this transaction of corruption. I think, the other party, the giver of the favor should also be brought to justice and should be made accountable for encouraging corruption. Bring among the citizens a fear that indulging in corruption will have as far reaching ramifications in their lives as it has for recipients of favors.

5. Educating the citizens - Let the government use mass media or for that matter, any form of media to educate citizens of their basic rights, processes to get work done in govt, SLAs, the right set of officials. This sheer information will ensure that such knowledge doesn't remain proprietary to a few government officials and middle men, but is in public domain. A big booster to decreasing corruption.

I am sure, the collective intelligence of this forum has many more ideas on how to contain corruption and expedite good governance. It's been harming us in many ways. From delay of productivity, to non interest of money to flow in in form of FDI, a tarnished image among other nations and more.

I would like to leave this discussion on a note that weeding our corruption would go a long way in making our nation strong and independent. more