Re: Fw: article on corruption in India

["Manish Gupta" <ml_gupta@hotmail.com>]

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I completely share the point made by Dr. Sabhlok regarding the Salary to
People's representative and corruption, however I don't agree with the the
statement "I don't believe the bureaucracy can be held responsibile for the
mess in India (by and large)".

Let's see where does a common citizen in India sees corruption in a day to
day living:

1) While applying for Gas/Electricity connection....
     Here the responsibility directly lies on the person heading that
department and in turn his superior's.

2) Corruption in getting the birth while traveling on Indian Railway.
      It's pretty obvious in this cae whose responsibility is this to stop
this kind of corruption.

3) Corruption while getting the driver's license/vehicle's paperwork.
      Here I feel the RTO officer's are responsible for this, that there
staff instead of working are demanding bribe to get the work done, the best
part is I've never seen any clearly written "How To's" to get any work done
in this department.

4) Corruption when you are stopped by a traffic policeman.
     Here also if you survey, probably most of the people are not even aware
of what kind of paperworks they are supposed to carry (including the
policeman), and he'll slap you with whatever fine  he wishes (or you pay
bribe to get out of it).

5) Corruption in the local govt. while registering birth/death, or work
related to any real estate papers.
     Here the the person heading the local govt. (which in our country is
District Collector and who happens to be an IAS officer) are squarely
responsible for this.

6) Corruption/harrassment when you are going out/ coming back in India by
Immigration or Customs officer.
    We have procedures to check in our own countryman when they return to
our country (which is definetly not the case in any of the western
countries), liking filling out disembarkment form etc. Then harassment by
Customs officials, if you go to them honestly to declare something instead
of doing the job they harass you and then demand for bribe for absolutely no
reason, who are supposed to put check on this kind of jungle raj, Revenue
officers isn't it (definetly not politician).


For none of the problems I feel the politician are directly responsible, its
not even a job of people's appointed executive, rather it is the job of
career executives.

I think life in India'd be extremely easier if some of the issues  raised
above are dealt with properly, and did you observe one important common
characteristics among them, they are all the problem of Govt. Citizen
interface on a day to day life, and bureacrat are completely responsible for
this mess (I think they do not have will to change this at all)

If this problem can be ractified, then only one can think about the
corruption in the higher places sanely.

I hope I am making some sense in this discussion.

Manish

>Corruption will not go till politicians are forced by us to be corrupt. All
>the outstanding IAS officers in India (and there are ***hundreds*** of
>them) have failed to make a long-term dent as all good systems are
>overturned or blocked ***by politicians.***
>
>It is amazing to see so much excellent advice offered in notesheets in
>files by IAS officers. Most of these suggestions are over-ruled by
>Ministers, usually by CMs. I have seen so many such cases, I don't believe
>the bureaucracy can be held responsibile for the mess in India (by and
>large).
>
>And our politicians are corrupt because we the citizens refuse to pay them
>a decent salary (as a first approximation to the complex problem). So I
>always pin the blame of the root of corruption in India on our citizens.
>Even after 2 years of saying this on IPI, almost none have understood this:
>all blame this or that. Everyone evades personal responsibility.
>
>When our CMs and PMs insists on honesty, for ever, the country will be
>cleaned up in 1 day. We have to work for that stage of governance. In the
>meanwhile we have to be grateful to our Vittals for doing a great job.
>



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