Rudy awakening

After dissembling over newspaper revelations of an all-expenses-paid New Year's vacation in Goa, Civil Aviation Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy should be left with no option but to submit his resignation, now that far larger and repeated trangressions have come to light.

On his part, Prime Minister Vajpayee should pay no heed to the pathetic explanations put forward by the Airports Authority of India, whose chairman has some explaining to do.

In fact, since Mr Rudy has told Indian Express that many ministers of state use mobile phones given to them by public sector undertakings under their charge, an audit should be ordered to see how far this is true, and how much further such ministerial misappropriation goes.

The Prime Minister should therefore order an enquiry into all such practices in other ministries, and he would be doing the long-suffering public sector undertakings' chiefs a signal service by signalling that ministers must behave with probity and restraint.

Certainly, it would be all too easy to trot out that old argument that infractions such as Mr Rudy's, as revealed in minute detail in yesterday's edition of the Asian Age, are standard procedure for politicians in every ministry, so why bother.

Yet, to overlook what has been revealed would be tantamount to condoning what is gross misconduct.

It has been fashionable to say that corruption has rarely been an issue in Indian politics, and that the premium in the system has always been on efficiency rather than honesty.

This may be largely true "" who cannot remember, after all, that Jagjivan Ram was famously forgiven for 'forgetting' to pay income tax for decades because he was an efficient minister?

But the sins of a closed economy, presided over by the Indian equivalent of Djilas "" 'New Class', can hardly be tolerated in an economy that is liberalising and accepting the logic of transparency in an open market.

As several large public sector undertakings ready themselves for IPOs later this year, India's low ranking in the global corruption index cannot be a matter of pride or comfort.

Rudy's arbitrary demands "" from the installation of geysers, air-conditioners, toilets and flooring, to payment for mobile phones, paintings and photo-shoots, not forgetting a fountain "" are particularly harmful, and not just because they highlight the forced collusion between the public sector and politicians.

The Airports Authority of India, the largest profit-making public sector undertaking under his ministry, is currently in the midst of implementing some major expansion and modernisation schemes, designed to put the country on the map as a major tourist and business travel destination.

The country needs to know that the minister presiding over this programme is not up to sundry shenanigans for private pleasure.

The broader solution to ministerial greed such as Mr Rudy's lies in accelerating the pace of disinvestment.

But even that is not enough, because the government will have a continuing presence in sectors like oil, aviation, telecom and power "" all crucial infrastructure areas.

So a broad cleansing operation, and mechanisms to prevent repetition, are required. The revelations regarding Mr Rudy provide the incentive for corrective action.