What Will It Take To Rid of Corruption ?

�Police Paper Extols the Virtue of Bribe�,
�COD to prove top IPS officer�,
�Notice served on Andhra MLA for fraud�,
�IT Commissioner land in CBI net”,
�MP gets jail term for tax evasion�.

These are only� a few of umpteen headlines of corruption that I have taken from the Indian newspaper of� last month .corruption in India has become so pervasive that it has seeped into our most revered institutions.

Is corruption the sole prerogative of the politicians and the bureaucracy? I am afraid not. In fact, the biggest corruption cases have been outside the government. The Harshad Mehta scam of around Rs 10,000 crore and the Ketan Parikh scam of Rs 5,000 crore have put out scandals to shame.

Corruption is not just a moral issue. It is also powerful inhibitor of economic progress in a poor country like India. The politician who proclaimed their commitment to improving the lot of poor would do will to remember that is really the poor that suffer the most in a corrupt country. Similarly, corruption affects small business enterprises the most, because they can not afford the increased costs due to corruption. On the other hand, larger enterprises use corruption to create monopolies or increase their market share, thereby improving their profitability.

Is there a solution to this seemingly unsolvable problem? Will we ever see a corruption- free society? I am optimist and I believe that every problem can be solved. It requires leadership that is inspirational, selfless and courageous fairness. Fairness, transparency and accountability displayed by leaders are what instill confidence in a government, a community and in a society.

Firstly there should be fairness in ensuring that anybody in the land, no matter who so ever, if found guilty of corruption is punished. It is important to create a climate of opinion where honesty matters and the corrupt are punished swiftly and as traced.

Let me now come to transparency. The best return on investment in reducing corruption will come from reforming our election funding system. We have to adopt the German system of funding so that politicians have less incentive to be corrupt. The fund available to each candidate must be made known to the public. We must set up a whistle-blower policy so that any violation in fund inflows can be quickly and publicly investigated and appropriate legal action is taken.

Let me now talk about accountability. Swift and harsh punishment meted out to the guilty is what serves as a deterrent to corruption in developed countries. In India, most of lok ayuktas have failed since they are under the control of the state governments and the quality of staff is rather poor, except in rare cases. We have to create a separate jury based judicial system to dispose of corruption cases quickly. A jury system will bring better visibility to such acts of crime and would also reduce the load on the judiciary.

At the end of the day, leadership is what determines the success of a corporation, community or country. If leaders from all sections of the society come together to fight this scourge, I am certain that corruption will disappear like dew on sunny morning.

Shashank Singh
B.Tech. Computer Science & Engineering (2008 Batch)