Corruption In India : Keep the public sector honest, transparent and accountable.
Largest sources of corruption in India are entitlement programmes and social spending schemes enacted by the Indian Government. Examples include Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or National Rural Health Mission. Many of the biggest scandals involve high level government officials, including Cabinet Ministers, Chief Ministers in cases like 2G Spectrum Scam, 2010 Commonwealth Games Scam, Adarsh Housing Society Scam, Coal Mining Scam or Cash for Vote, Scam. Shockingly, all these scandals drained several hundred billions of the honest tax-payers and of Indian economy. Other daily sources of corruption include India’s trucking (heavy transport) industry which is forced to pay billions in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on its interstate highways.
In government hospitals, corruption is associated with non-availability/duplication of medicines, getting admission, consultation with doctors and availing diagnostic services. There have been several cases of manipulation of officials of the Income Tax Department of India for relaxed prosecutions in exchange of bribes. Corruption is prevalent on a large-scale during election times and votes are bought with the help of l money.
According to a report (in 2008), 120 of India’s 523 Parliament members were accused of crimes. Politicians and criminals are the main cause of corruption in every country. Lack of ethical qualities and morality among administrators and politicians, illiteracy among people, poor economic infrastructure all these have tightened grip over corruption. Artificial scarcity created by people, vast size of population, complex laws and procedures to eliminate corruption discourage the people for taking steps against corruption.
Tolerance of people towards corruption has indeed fueled the strength and greed of wrongdoers. This was aptly quoted by Arshad Warsi, “Dealing with corruption and staying calm is a talent most of us in India have mastered and learned to live with”. The causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, complicated taxes and licensing systems, numerous government departments each with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly by government controlled institutions on certain goods and services delivery and the lack of transparent laws and processes. These are significant variations in level of corruption. Even media has widely published allegations of corrupt Indian citizens stashing trillions of dollars in Swiss Banks.
Corruption is not only restricted to India, but is prevalent or to be precise is growing in many other countries today. The scams and scandals have caused Eurozone crises, the melting down of U.S. Economy and deflating politicians in the United Kingdom. Politicians advertise hugely at the time of elections, which are usually publicly funded campaigns.
The US military budget is bloated but perhaps half of it is spent on outsourced services, not on the military. The developed nations can still sustain this misfortune as they have strong economy, developed science and technology. But India is only crumbling and deteriorating under the burden of corruption. While speaking on corruption and other related problems Arvind Kejriwal once quoted “Political Revolution in India has begun Bharat jaldi badlega.” True, India has, and is taking steps to tackle this problem as they feel cheated for their valued contribution of funds and taxes. Under the leadership of Anna Hazare, who began ‘fast-unto-death’, the mass movement of people saw an expression of their collective anger against corruption.
