Corruption - the system of governance in India!!!

What do we understand by corruption? Corruption is lack of integrity. This could be financial integrity, moral integrity and intellectual integrity. Corruption, as defined by the World Bank, is the use of public office for private profit. A person in office feels that he should earn enough not only for himself and his lifetime but also for his children, grand children and perhaps seven generations. That is probably the basic motive behind the enormous accumulation of wealth by the corrupt in our country today.

In 1922, the noted freedom fighter Mr. C. Rajgopalachari wrote in his prison diary that "elections and corruption, injustice and the power and tyranny of wealth and inefficiency of administration will make hell of life as soon as freedom is given to us. Men will look regretfully back to the old regime of comparative justice, as well as efficient, and more or less honest administration. The only thing gained from independence will be that as a race, we will be saved from dishonour and subordination". He couldn’t have been truer, as corruption in all walks of government administration is a rule today rather than an exception. Corruption has become the system of governance in the country.

The Indian corruption system can be categorized into four 'Ps' in terms of quantum of money exchanged. These are:

• Political (e.g. kickbacks, donations to political parties from individuals and industries, use of black money in elections etc).
• Programme (e.g., food for work, rural development, relief schemes, grants and subsidies to NGOs, etc).
• Project (e.g., commission to be paid for approval of contract and grants).
• Petty (e.g., chai paani (bribe/tips for prompt access and service) for obtaining an application form or submitting application form, making a FIR in police stations etc.

What is hurting the country most is the 2^nd and 4^th category of corruption, since that is where the maximum interaction takes place between the people in maximum need of services from the government administration, law & order etc and the administrative setup. According to a TII-CMS India Corruption Study 2007 done by Transparency International, “about one-third of Below-Poverty-Line (BPL) households, across the country paid bribe in the last one year to avail one or more of the 11 public services covered in the study, which shows that the poor are not spared even in the case of targeted programmes. The study estimated that Rs. 8,830 million, in all, was paid as bribe by BPL households in the last one year, in availing 11 public services. It is estimated that the poorest households of our country paid Rs. 2,148 million to police alone, as bribe.”

What are we losing as a nation because of corruption? According to N.Vittal, Former Chief Vigilance Commissioner, “Corruption in the economy leads to inflated government expenditures and scarce resources are squandered on uneconomic projects because of their potential to generate lucrative pay off.” It is estimated that the economy of the country can grow by 1.5 - 2% more and the FDI can increase by 10-12% more, if only our administrative setup was more transparent. Naturally, because of inflated government expenditure and squandering of scarce resources, the people of the country also have to face higher inflation and a lower standard of living.

Surprisingly, corruption has not always been perceived to have a negative impact upon economic development and growth. One view is that corruption acts as an efficient lubricant for facilitating development in a highly regulated and slow moving economic environment as it enables actors to cross barriers which hamper economic decision making. However, the fact is that the impact of corruption is systematic in nature. It generates negative economy wide externalities that denigrate the performance of the system as a whole and compromise the economy’s long-term dynamic efficiency. Perhaps, this idea has not yet percolated down to the multitude of babu’s and clerks manning the administrative setup of the government. Until it does, as observed by the Supreme Court recently, “Not even god can save this country!”