It is a no brainer that Corruption In India is at its rampant best.There is not one section of the society that is spared from it.Corruption in the form of bribery takes the cake and given that it begins at the grass root level makes it even more difficult to monitor and control.The Corruption and Bribery Report published at trak.in earlier , gives a detailed breakdown of the scale of the bribes and the reasons why bribes are given.
The striking though well known findings of the report points out that close to half the bribes are requested by the Government Officials both at the state and national level.The same government personnel who are entrusted with the development of the nation are filling their own pockets.No wonder then the nation’s politicians are the most corrupt lot.
indiancorruption.jpgVishal Sanjay January 16, 2010 at 6:30 pm
The cause of India’s corruption is due to our previous socialist type of economy, but from the time of economic liberalization there has been a steady decline in corruption. So as you see the extensive regulation forced people into giving bribes which spoilt the entire system, so to reduce corruption we’ll need to implement more liberalization strategies. Kerala is the least corrupt state because it gives its citizens absolute power and freedom, not only now but from the time of independence.
The small bribes taken by police officers and small officials isn’t a big issue, its impossible to stop that and its of no use even if we do, all we have to stop now is the high level corruption.
Now, I don’t see anything wrong in the high spending during elections Arun, this cannot be called as money which comes from bribes, most politicians use donations from the public and small businessmen. Currently we’re having a stable, able and honest government in the center, so we can just watch the change coming.
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2 Vishal Sanjay January 16, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Apologies for the mistake, it isn’t Arun its Ankit.
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3 Vikrant January 17, 2010 at 1:12 am
The worst repercussion of corruption is that it negates meritocracy altogether. High recognition and encouragement of merits is the cornerstone for the progress of any society. It’s sad we have created a breeding ground which is taking our country ever further down.
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4 Ankit January 17, 2010 at 1:16 am
Second that completely Vikrant!!! Corruption causes more then the monetary losses.As mentioned in the post, Favourtism is an evil.Kills merit like nothing else does.More so, killing meritocracy at those levels of national/state importance means that the nation’s growth stalls too!!
We created a breeding ground to an extent since we are the ones electing the government.But the sad part is the choices aren’t plenty.One is more evil than the other.Education i think has to take centre stage as a benchmark while selecting our leaders, but that again is a long shot
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5 Sahil January 17, 2010 at 6:43 am
Ankit
Maybe some of it is for us to blame too.
We always never ask questions, never put our concerns in and this is even when we do it.
The example being fine for traffic violations Rs 500 for speeding or 50 for the officer?
That is a no brainer !!!!!
How about we stop spending on the elections pay our public servants a decent salary and then see the effect????
Also getting a Public servant job is not as easy as we think after you pass the exams on merit we still have to bribe and claw our way to get that job hence it is obvious the person who got the job is going to recover that investment back.
A simple solution could be government programs saying all the elections stuff information cold be shown be a Media Channel (Doordarshan ) which would include atleast the debates and the ideology the goverment or the party is following.
Thanks
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6 Ankit January 17, 2010 at 11:03 am
Agrfee with u Sahil!! As i mentioned before, we are equally responsible for the situation.At smaller levels, we tend to get away by bribing.
Infact, Arun has a recent incident where he chose to pay the fine legally and did not resort to bribe !! May be that is the kind of citizenship that required .
Getting a public service job is difficult cos the places are filled on Bhai-BHatijawad as it is known :-) So, it becomes a capitalist job
The media can play an active role by creating more awareness and exposing the government underpinnings,, but it is a huge ask from the media houses who themselves need govt support to sustain
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7 Vikrant January 17, 2010 at 6:59 am
Absolutely Ankit. Recent killing of the RTI activist Satish Shetty in pune (http://beta.thehindu.com/news/article80222.ece) is a strong signal that the corrupt and powerful are calling the shots in this country.
I believe the solution should be grass root level. It cannot be top down cleansing which is what we all have false hope of.
Great revolutions have started from the common people. Education and awareness of the people can bring about the change. By people I count all the 1.2 billion Indian living across the country.
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8 Sahil January 17, 2010 at 11:35 am
Ankit and Vikrant
I want to ask is there a solution for a situation like this??? how do we implement it.
I can write about it and tell people but that doesn’t change things. I tried to get my driving License in Delhi for driving renewed. Not only was my application taken and accepted the officer he clearly stated that i will have to come back after 1 week to check on it. The application process written in the laws entrance said it is supposed to take a week to do this. When I told my dad about this he shouted at me to get it done through a agent. The very same day I was Rs 500 lighter with my new license in my hand. And guess what for Rs 40 My dad made me 2 copies of it
What do i do??? just not think of it. The people have adjusted to it because thats what we do. I would be lying if i say i wont use the agent the next time because it is just more easier to do so. how do you tackle that ??
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9 Ankit January 17, 2010 at 11:39 am
Sahil, the problem you faced is exactly what is causing all the problem.We have been forced to accept that bribing is the norm to get work done.
I wouldnt say that ur dad did wrong because he understands it will be near impossible to get it done otherwise.However, we will have to stand up and decide not to bribe.I got my license without any agent, it took uncountable visits to the office and more than 3 months to get it.So, yes there are issues in going against the norm, but imagine if each individual decides not to bribe, the whole problem can be solved in due course of time
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10 Sahil January 17, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Ankit
Not only I appreciate the whole you choosing the right way but i commend you for it.
The problem here is not That we choose to bribe or not. You took 3 months of your time for a procedure which is legally supposed to take you 1 day. This isn’t impossible as the agent is miraculously able to do it. So what do we do????
We make the Agents part of the system!!!! hell we take out a Tatkal Scheme such as in passports Where you can get your driving license renewed in 1 day for Rs 500. Employ the agent and give him a salary, I dont care. At least the government would not have to loose on that more, it is already lost. The procedure finances itself. Also please getting rid of the person who is sitting at the counter not doing his/ her job with probably a blacklist certificate for not being able to get hired in by government organizations also a huge fine. !!!!
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11 Sahil January 17, 2010 at 11:36 am
It didnt take a week but a day in my earlier comment
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12 Madhav Shivpuri January 18, 2010 at 7:02 am
As some people have commented, refusing to pay bribe can only be part of the solution. But can you tell to the father who wants his son to get an MBBS or MBA seat by paying donation to the College? Can the admission be delayed by a few weeks/ months or years because the father will not pay the bribe? As the seats in the college fill up from other ‘willing’ students, the prices will go up and not down.
We all can think of hundreds of situation where one does it out of necessity and not necessarily out of convenience or wanting to take short cuts. It could be to ‘smooth out’ the issue rather than anger the official/ or party concerned.
I wonder what Management Guru C.K.Prahalad or Economist Amartya Sen would suggest as the possible solution to this problem.
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13 Sahil January 18, 2010 at 8:24 am
Madhav Ji,
As a student who is pursuing his degree in BBA, I can suggest that we need to increase the number of government colleges where MBBS and MBA can be pursued by the students because this isnt available the students have to compete not at 90% but at 96.5%.
The student who does his due diligence and does get a 85% is not asked about!!!! then the parents still getting their sons/daughters to do better get them admission through Bribing. 85 % seriously isn’t what i would expect to be a bad number for an excellent student. Also most of our education system focuses on numbers. Courses like Real estate, Politics, art history, agriculture development and urban planning are still not existing. everybody want their son/ daughter to do MBBS or MBA nothing else. More options and more colleges is the key to this problem. This completely my opinion and if you think of something else please share.
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14 Madhav Shivpuri January 18, 2010 at 8:47 am
Sahil – Agree with you about supply pressure. I was just giving one example where bribing was out of need and not just taking a short cut to a goal or curry favours. If we stay on the education example, if the student has got 40-45% results and wants an MBA, I don’t have a view whether the parents should make donations or not, but the very fact that the college admission is controlled by people and there is a lack of transparency leads to management or some people taking advantage of it.
If there is an automated processes for college admission then if the student has secured not x% but is in top 5000 in the eligible candidates and he has choices 1,2,3 for the course (MBA, MCom, etc) and he also has choices of a,b,c,d for college names (IITB, BITS Pilani,…) then an automatching system, based on the results of the student, could assign the college and course and there would not be for human intervention and hence bribing. If the student has change of heart about what he wants to study or choice of college there can be another process to care of it, or pass the seat to the next eligible candidate. I hope that what Educomp, IGNOU etc are trying to increase schools and colleges, and also online learning solutions, should address some part of the education problem.
However, with respect to the overall subject of corruption there needs to be more comprehensive solution depending on the industry, process etc.
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15 Kalpak Gadre January 18, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Recently I had gone to get a new license at suburbs in Mumbai. I was charged 40 Rs fee and handed a receipt of 24.60 Rs. When asked for why I was given receipt for only 24.60 Rs, I was told the breakup as 24.60 Rs which I believe is the actual charge. Additional 5 Rs for the tech guys who take the pictures and update the database and 10 Rs as EXTRA.
This shows how openly people are bribing in our country and we don’t even notice it or protest it.
With about 500 people paying 10 Rs extra every day, its turnover of 1.5 Lakhs a month. With so many people involved in it, I wonder how much each individual even makes from it. I feel pity that people are willing to ask for bribe for even such a small amount. I would have happily paid 100 Rs as charge if it was official. If there is room for increasing the charge and government to make more money, firstly government is loosing on a opportunity to make more money. Secondly, people are already paying the same amount anyway.
What can I do as a citizen here? I thought about reporting it to a news paper but then thought maybe I should first report it to local RTO head? But I have no doubts that he is already aware about it. Also, after disclosing this, I may not even get a license ever? Or ultimately would need to bribe a lot more than anyone else does to finally get it?
Is there any official entity which maintains anonymity and where we can report such incidences? Even after googling where I could report this, I did not find any official entity to which you can report corruption?
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16 Story Spice January 19, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Elections are indispensable in any democratic set up. We need more transparency in processes inlcuding entire financial transactions from/to/with in country.
Time up for a change in currency system !!! If we stop printing currency and move to digital currency, the piled up billions worth black & fake currency can be wiped off and an economical cleansing is possible. What do you think?
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17 Joseph August 19, 2010 at 5:08 pm
I guess we the people as well as the process are the issues. From our end:
1) We see the opportunity cost (In the case of getting a driving license – if I have to take a day off then I will loose more than 500, so I’m okay to pay it as bribe). The same capitalist mind is causing the trouble
2) We don’t ask questions/or stand up. We are either afraid because we have heard horrible stories of those who stood up or asked questions
3) We don’t vote. We do not utilize the vehicle given to us but we complain all over the web
4) We don’t get involved in social activities that will bring awareness. We always think it is someone else’s problem
(of course there will be exception to this list; hope all of us are in the exception)
From the process side:
1) It sides with the culprit rather than the victim
2) The law breakers are the law makers. So they will not bite the hand that feeds them!
CEO of FabIndia has written a fabulous book called ‘Making India Work’. Even if you don’t agree to all his proposals, you will come to know of the issues as well as some of the cures. I wrote a review here: http://goo.gl/fb/MAnGN
However, it it was only for the petty money minded officials filling their own pockets, the enormity of the bribery might be restricted to a certain level.What if corruption takes the shape of a billion dollar behemoth.According to Management Guru C.K.Prahalad , the cost of corruption to the country might as well exceed Rs. 250,000 crores.
The total spending for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections is pegged at a whopping Rs. 10,000 crore.The breakup of this spending throws up some interesting insights too.
* Rs 1,300 crore (Rs 13 billion) by the Election Commission
* Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) by the Centre and state governments
* Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) were spent by political parties and individual candidates
8000 crore spent by political parties and individual candidates ? Where do they get hold of this kind of money to spend. Again, it comes as a no brainer that it is hugely attributed to the Private Funding that political parties attract from big pocket industrialists.The reasons why private spending of this scale happens again is rather simple Favourtism.It is a well known fact that government support is crucial for industries small and large.One favourable swing in a huge tender or a favourable policy, and all the benefits can be reaped.
C.K.Prahalad fitting compares politicians with Venture Capitalists :-)
Given the risky nature of the investments in elections, politicians as venture capitalists, we can assume, will not settle for less than a 10-fold return.
More than spending by individuals and political parties, what i fail to understand is , Why is a 10,000 crore rupee spend needed for carrying out Elections.There can be infrastructure and operational costs, but they can never amount to such alarming numbers.
Now, when the government is well aware of crores of amount spent on election campaigns and product like advertisements with politicians selling themselves door to door, why cant regulations be implemented to stop all this waste of money.Why cant the regulatory bodies impose a maximum cap on the amount spent on election campaigns failing which the political party is banned to contest.However, accountability is something that leaves a lot for asking and barring which none of the measures to put a stop to corruption can reap rewards.
It is embarrassing that billions of dollars are being spent on electing leaders who do nothing more than succumbing to taking bribes after getting elected.
The gory facts are for everyone to see but then a solution as usual is not in sight. Can you think of a possible solution to this massive problem? Do share your thoughts.
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