Are we an incorrigible nation? So many scams have been exposed in the last few years, but has that brought down the level of corruption? The answer is evident: there is no let-up. But there is hope. Slowly, away from the glare of the media, things have started to change. I had met Sukhbir Singh Badal, the deputy chief minister of Punjab, last week in Chandigarh. To end corruption, he says, one needs to ensure that the government and the common man do not come into physical contact. In other words, e-governance holds the key. He is trying out various experiments in highly corruptible departments like revenue, police and land records, and wants to move all procurement online. It’s too early to say if these steps will reach their logical conclusion and stamp out corruption from the state, but this is the way to go ahead. There is no other option.
Take the case of passports. The 70-odd new Passport Service Centres, set up by TCS and also operated by it in partnership with the government, have driven touts out of business. The processes are streamlined, and the progress can be checked online. Yes, the bit about police verification is still fuzzy and many people still end up paying the police out of fear; but corruption is down by a very large margin. There can’t be two views on that. Similarly, the Raman Singh government in Chhattisgarh has moved the public distribution system to the electronic platform. Instead of ration cards, people have been issued swipe cards which carry records of their entitlements and purchases. And these can be used in any ration shop. A person is no longer tied to one shop for life. This has plugged leakages, removed the long queues in front of ration shops and given the state government a good idea of how much ration is actually being picked up by the people. The proposed cash transfer of subsidies to the poor is another step that will stem the rot in the public distribution system. Two pilots, one in Karnataka and the other in Rajasthan, have shown that it works beautifully.
At the macro level also, the public outcry over scams has helped bring in transparency. Had the 2G spectrum scam not been exposed, I doubt if the government would have moved to auction of spectrum. It would have continued to hand out inexpensive spectrum to some favoured businessmen. There is now clamour for auction of all natural resources, including coal. It might make things expensive, but at least the process will be transparent. Similarly, had the securities scam not happened, maybe India’s stock market regulation would not have been so robust. Thanks to the Satyam scam, auditors are a lot more cautious before accepting statements and signing accounts. Some good has come out of the monumental wrongs. There is also realization that decision makers can no longer hide behind the maze of files and red tape. The Right to Information Act and the effort of the ministry off corporate affairs to make all documents public have made it difficult to keep an indefinite lid on wrongdoings.
