Basic strategies to fight corruption

Sharing a few ideas for forward looking chief ministers and central govt ministers to fight corruption:

Remove the ability of officials to extort through delays and obstruction:

Does a corrupt government official have to necessarily do something wrong to make money? Nope. They can just delay and obstruct, and the affected party will be forced to show up with currency notes. In fact, they don’t even have to actually delay, it is enough to just create the apprehension.
Let us say I am a real estate developer and I need government approvals before starting construction. I have arranged financing, bought land, and am ready. Every single day of delays causes a loss of thousands or lacs of rupees. Now the Municipal Corporation or Fire Force or any other department babu has to just sit tight, and I will have to bribe.

Solution: Put the burden of timely action on government, not on the citizen.

For example, if government makes says I have to get approval from Fire Service department, make it mandatory that it has to be given in 30 or 45 days. If not, I can assume that the permission is given. It is not be my responsibility to chase the file and get an order. This is plain common sense and decency, which has no place in our system.

Cut down Government spending
When I was a kid, I would misplace my pencil in school literally every single day. So what should my mom or dad have done? Cut the pencil into half before giving it to me!
Government also has a knack of losing money. So it should spend less! Whenever government spends, e.g., on building roads and infrastructure, welfare schemes, purchases (from uniforms to fodder to defence equipment), money gets siphoned off.
But how can government cut spending? For starters, don’t do commercial activity. Does government have to sell rice and wheat in today’s age? Are there not enough grocery stores? Many states have Civil Supplies Corporations which spend hundreds of crores every year on procuring things. Why? The answer will be always ‘poor people’. If you want to sell rice cheap to underprivileged, why not give them subsidy coupons? Let people buy from wherever they want.

As long as government continues to run buses, hotels, and everything under the sun, people will loot, politicians will make merry, and citizens will be fed slogans about poverty eradication. If Government wants, it can find smart ways of running most welfare schemes without building another layer of bureaucracy. But that suits nobody’s interest.

Make it easier to report corruption
Let us say, if you are a victim of corruption (say in RTO’s office), you have to complain to the Vigilance Department. I mean no disrespect, but how many people want to face one more government department? One more arrogant self-important official? I would hate doing that.
What if there was a courteous and professional non-governmental agency to whom you could report the matter? E.g., the way An IT firm does the passport document verification, why can’t this also be outsourced?
When I applied for passport a few years back in Mumbai, the document verification done by IT company was amazingly professional. After that, the verification by government babus was a 5 hour nightmare, which I will not even describe. Would anyone want to talk to such officials ever?

Create transparency, remove arbitrariness
Why do thieves operate at night? Because nobody is watching. Corruption also happens when nobody is watching.
Use technology and shine a light on everything. For example, in every office put an electronic board outside which has all the important (non-sensitive) information about things in the office. Also, put it on a website.
Example: Contractors doing government work have to keep meeting officials to get their payment released. If the officials are corrupt, they can make money even for such a simple thing. If you publish a list of people whose payment is due and the norms for selecting the person whose payment is to be released next, such corruption will come down.

The Nazi Hunting strategy
After World War II, Jewish groups gave rewards to hunt Nazis. Similarly, give monetary incentive for people to find out and help prosecute corruption. Else, why would they risk earning anyone’s enmity?
If someone leads to prosecution and recovery of government funds, let 20% be given as incentive. This is not an easy thing to implement but something worth pondering.
Enforcement and punishment.

Prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act is slow and convictions are very few. Under criminal law, the evidence required to convict anyone is very high. People hesitate to come forward to complain due to fear of retaliation.
As harsh and impractical as it may sound, at least for certain departments prone to high degree of corruption, make it a contractual assignment with a 5 year term limit. Only renew the contract if the person has a stellar reputation. The burden is on the employee to show good character, and not on government to prove wrongdoing.

Funding of political parties and elections
Political parties need money, for which voluntary donations are often insufficient. So they systematically siphon off government contracts, money for appointments and postings, and general influence peddling.
While funding will not make them Mr Clean overnight, at least one excuse would be gone.
All the above steps will help to an extent, but unless there is a collective disapproval for corruption, real change will not come easily.

If there is one thing that unites all Indians, it is our stated hatred for corruption. But at the same time we are swimming in corruption. more