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Corruption in India: An Analysis State of Prisons in India

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Difference between Arctic and
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Introduction
effects of Climate change
“ Corruption refers to the act of misuse and abuse of power
Tribal Revolts in India during
especially by those in the government for personal gains
its Freedom struggle
either pecuniary or a favour ”. Corruption in public life is a
means of obtaining personal benefit through illicit means and the Status of Economy since
abuse of public office and property. People in the public and private Pandemic
sectors employ corrupt methods and unfair methods to complete a
variety of large and minor tasks. This is because people desire to Horticulture in India: Growth
and its Future
make a lot of money without putting in a lot of effort. The menace of
corruption is pervasive in India, from petty bribes demand by the
Tribal communities in India:
policemen to multi-crore scams at the highest political level like 2G Their Culture and signiDcance
scam. It is not only limited to government authorities but can be
seen within the private sector as well. In 2021 under Corruption Buddhism in India: From Rise
Perceptions Index ranked the country in 85th place out of 180, to its Decline
on a scale where the lowest-ranked countries are perceived to have
Economic Liberalization in
the most honest public sector. This shows the picture that our
India
country is in hands of officials and administrators who are not
taking ethical ways to fulfil their duties. The Growth Challenges

Background

Corruption in India is an issue which affects economy of central, Daily Bits

state and local government agencies in many ways.
Corruption is blamed for stunting the economy of India. ASHA worker’s vision for
India@100
A study conducted by Transparency International in 2005
recorded that more than 62% of Indians had at some point or
Voting Rights to NRIs
another paid a bribe to a public official to get a job done.
In 2008, another report showed that about 50% of Indians had DRDO carries out maiden test
first-hand experience of paying bribes or using contacts to get of Phase-II of ballistic missile
services performed by public offices. defence
Examples include the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
One nation, one ITR form
Employment Guarantee Act
Actand the National Rural
Health Mission. Pahari community in ST list
The causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, of Jammu and Kashmir
complicated tax and licensing systems, numerous government
departments with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers,
monopoly of government controlled institutions on certain goods Explained
and services delivery, and the lack of transparent laws and
processes. How does tokenization
There are significant variations in the level of corruption and in prevent online card fraud?
the government's efforts to reduce corruption across India.
Languages panel
Analysis recommendations on
Inclusion of Hindi as the
Reasons for corruption in India OfDcial language

Political reasons
reasons: Palaeogenomics: Explaining
Use of black money in elections
elections: The rising expenditure is our Origins
rather seen as investment by the candidates who then misuse
China’s 73rd year of
their power to misuse the illegal wealth. Assets of some MPs have
Independence: India- China
even seen a jump of more than 1000% between successive
relations
elections.
Criminalization of politics
politics: More than 30% of the legislators Expanding India’s geospatial
in the country have pending criminal cases against them. When technology
law breakers become the law makers, rule of law is the first
casualty
casualty.
Capitalism clashes
clashes: With the economic reforms undertaken in Special
the aftermath of the BoP crisis of 1991, private sector has become
a prominent player in the market earlier monopolized by the State of Prisons in India
state. This has led to growth of unholy nexus between Politicians
A detailed account on
and businessmen
businessmen.
Abortion Rights in India
Economic reasons
reasons:
High share of informal sector: In India more than 80% of the Difference between Arctic and
workforce is in the informal sector and therefore do not come Antarctica Regions and
under the ambit of tax or labour laws. Such enterprises usually effects of Climate change
bribe the officials to keep out of the ambit of laws where the
compliance is costly and complex. Tribal Revolts in India during
its Freedom struggle
Ease of doing business
business: lengthy procedure of approvals
required to start a business with no transparency and legal Status of Economy since
accountability related to matters such as time limits force the Pandemic
entrepreneurs to overcome the red-tapism through bribery.
High inequalities
inequalities: In India 1% of the rich holds about 60% of
the total wealth. At the upper income levels it leads to crony
capitalism, at lower income levels it forces people to bribe the
officials even to get their basic needs fulfilled.
Administrative reasons
reasons:
Colonial bureaucracy
bureaucracy: The bureaucracy essentially remains
colonial in nature characterized by 19th century laws e.g. Police
Act 1861, complex rules, wide discretion, secrecy, moral
responsibility devoid of legal accountability and the ivory tower
attitude.
Failed reforms
reforms: Lack of political will and resistance from within
the bureaucracy has led to failure of major reforms like citizen
charter, RTI and e-governance.
Low wages
wages: The remuneration in the public sector remains
below par with the private sector along with poor career growth
opportunities for those working at the lower levels and harsher
working conditions.
Judicial failure
failure: The judiciary has failed to bring to book the
corrupt officials including politicians. The excess protection
provided under Article 309 and 310 of the constitution to the civil
servants and need of taking the government permission before
the prosecution of civil servants further compounds the problem
Social and Ethical reasons:
Changes in lifestyle
lifestyle: Increasing shift towards individualization
and materialism has led to increased penchant for a luxurious
lifestyle. To earn more money people are willing to adopt even the
unethical means with no consideration of others.
Social discrimination
discrimination: The poor and marginalized due to their
lack of awareness and high dependence on the state become the
easy target of exploitation by corrupt officials
Failure of education system
system: The value education has failed
miserably in India to inculcate the value of empathy, compassion,
integrity, equity etc. in the young generation. The lifestyle
changes induced by the globalization have further degraded the
moral fabric of the society

Consequences of Corruption

Negative impacts:

1. It degrades the social and moral fabric of the society, erodes

the credibility of the government and leads to exploitation and
violation of fundamental rights of the poor and marginalized
by the state. For instance, diversion of PDS ration deprives
poor violate their Right to food.
2. It hampers ease of doing business. As the recently released
Global Competitiveness Index has pointed out “The private
sector still considers corruption to be the most problematic
factor for doing business in India”. This obstructs private
investments which creates jobs and hampers innovation
leading to brain drain from India.
3. The rising inequality due to poor outcomes of the welfare
schemes such as ICDS, NRHM (scams have been
unearthed in many states like UP), NREGA etc
etc. is
another result of the leakages and diversion of the resources to
ghost beneficiaries.
4. Corruption in the tax administration leads to high tax evasion
generating black money – an offspring and food of corruption.
According to various estimates the size of parallel economy in
India is as much as 50% of GDP.
5. As many CAG reports which were instrumental in unearthing
major scams like 2G and coal mines have pointed out, state
bears huge losses due to the nepotism and corruption – money
which could have been used in social sector or infrastructure
creation.
6. Corruption increases the cost of production which
ultimately has to be borne by the consumer. In the project
execution such as roads and bridges it leads to adoption of
poor quality of material claiming the lives of many due to the
collapse.
7. Illegal lobbying has led to elite bias in the state policies. For
instance, tertiary healthcare and higher education receive
more political and policy attention than the primary
health and education.
8. Poor efficiency of the government in executing major
developmental projects is another shortfall of the corruption.
9. Corruption in the defence deals in the past has led to delays
in the modernization of the armed forces in the era of
increasing hostility in the neighbourhood. It does not augur
well from the perspective of the national security.
10. Corruption in police leads to under-reporting of crime
encouraging the criminals and judicial corruption compels
people of adopt extra-legal methods to get the justice.

Positive Impacts:

1. It helps in overcoming the red-tapism in the overburdened and

lethargic government machinery especially for the businesses
which cannot wait for long to get the approvals thus avoiding
the opportunity cost of waiting.
2. The ‘gift
gift culture’ helps officials build the networking which
can help overcome the long drawn processes involving tenders
thus expediting the work.
3. Corruption has helped many refugees from being deported to
the places where they are persecuted.
4. Horse trading in the politics has helped bring the stability in
the government especially during the coalition era of
government e.g. JMM bribery helped PV Narsimha Rao
government to survive.
5. It helps people at the lower level of the bureaucracy to survive
in their job.
6. However, these positive effects in no way match the negative
cost of corruption to the society and economy.
7. It leads to inequality, discontent and resentment in the society
which promote lawlessness and fuels the growth of negative
tendencies like communalism and regionalism.

Measures taken to tackle corruption

Legal steps:
Prevention of corruption Act 1988
Benami property Act
Central vigilance commission act
Right to Information act, 2005
Whistleblower protection Act 2014
Lokpal and Lokayukta Act 2013
Administrative reforms:
E-governance initiatives: Initiatives like service delivery
through CSCs, digitization of the land record, JAM, DBT, E-biz
(single window system), e-marketplace etc. help prevent
corruption
Citizen Charters and Public Service delivery and
Grievance Redress Acts in states: Many states like
Karnataka (SAKLA initiative) and Rajasthan have enacted such
acts to make bureaucracy legally accountable for delivering
quality service within stipulate time periods.
Economic reforms:
Liberalization and Privatization: Recent efforts in
improving the ease of doing business such as FDI liberalization
will further erode the power of bureaucracy over the
functioning of the market.
GST: Reduced cost of compliance by simplification and
digitization of the tax architecture and e-waybills that remove
the need of check posts on the state borders are some of the
ways through which GST can help reduce the corruption.
Demonetisation: It will expose the people having black
money and illegal transactions.
Electoral reforms:
Cash donations: to set a specific amount for campaigning
and other purposes for a political party.
Disclosure norms: As earlier mandated by SC, politicians are
required to make disclosure about their financial assets,
education and criminal records thud helping the voters to
make an informed choice and helping clean the politics of
criminals.
Judicial Interventions
Interventions: Recently SC asked courts to
complete the cases pending against the legislators within a
year.

Why these measures have failed?

Lack of political willingness to bring serious electoral,

administrative and legal reforms.
Laws like PCA 1988 have been used more to protect the corrupt
rather than punish them.
E-gov initiatives have only proved to be a tool for administrative
convenience and recentralization of power rather than
empowering citizens
citizens.
The electoral reforms have only been nominal and political
gimmicks.
Political executive continues to micro manage the functioning of
bureaucracy via suspension, promotion, transfers etc. e.g. recent
Panchkula violence.
The administrative structure and attitudes essentially continue to
be colonial in nature.
Decentralization which was supposed to bring the government
closer to the people has been rendered ineffective by the apathy of
the states.

What needs to be done further?

Various commissions such as SARC and Santhanam

committee have made important and feasible recommendation
what is required is a strong political will.
Following steps are required to empower the citizens and make
the government accountable for its performance:

1. Reforms in bureaucracy:

Establishing the Civil Service Board to curb the excessive

political control over administration.
Reducing the hierarchy levels in the governments
Conducting periodic sensitivity training for the civil servants
Simplifying the disciplinary proceedings and strengthening
preventive vigilance within the departments to ensure corrupt
civil servant do not occupy the sensitive position
Objectivity in performance evaluation and linking pay and
promotion to it
Using the new technologies such as AI and big data to
automate routine procedures in government such as issuance
of certificates.

2. Electoral reforms:

Barring the criminals from entering the legislatures by

amending RPA
Banning the cash donation to political party and imposing
limits on the overall expenditure of the political parties
Empowering ECI by giving legal force to MCC and making paid
news a criminal offence
Exploring the idea of state funding as recommended by
Indrajit Gupta committee

3. Changes in governance:

Bringing Transparency of the Rules Act (TORA) as

recommended by Economic survey to increase transparency
and awareness about rules
Giving citizen charter and social audits a legal force and
creating GRMs at all levels to ensure their enforcement
Empowering the local body so as to make them a potent tool
for direct democracy
Judicial reforms to expedite trials against the corrupt officials
so that these laws remain a strong deterrent
7-point Police reforms as suggested by SC in Prakash Singh
case to establish rule of law and ensure impartial investigation
in cases of corruption
Amending the anti-defection law to strengthen legislative
control over the executive as envisaged under constitution and
not the other way round.

Conclusion

Integrity, transparency, and fight against corruption have to be part

of the culture. They must be thought of as fundamental values of the
society we live in. A practical approach is required to see it as
obsession to be cured. An incremental approach to the problem will
lead to an achievable target-setting and faster completion. There has
to be continuous checks and balances in the system. Corruption can
be tackled effectively. But it needs home grown solutions that
eliminate indigenous problems.

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