Wg Cdr Mahesh Chander Sudan (Retd)
We, the people of India, encounter cases involving Government officials, politicians, influential and powerful persons exploiting innocent citizens with corrupt practices to gain undue benefits both in cash and kind. Corruption is a form of dishonest or criminal behaviour that occurs when a person or organization in a position of power abuses their authority for personal gains. It has many forms like bribery, extortion, embezzlement, nepotism, abuse of discretion, influence peddling etc. It can occur in many places including Government, business, the Courts, the Media and Civil society. My maiden encounter with corruption occurred when I witnessed my mother placing a two rupees note in her pension book around 50 years ago before presenting it to Tehsil Treasury Officer for paying her monthly pension without any delay, deferment or imposed deficiency of official paper beyond her knowledge. It now surprises me as pensioners like her never considered it to be a corruption but offered though helplessly but a token of gratitude to the Treasury Officer for disbursing their earned pension out of public treasury without any hassle. This enables me to comprehend as to how innocence and ignorance provide fertile ground for corruption to grow despite legal frame work instituted in the system for eradication of the corruption.
Corruption in India is an issue that affects economy of Central, State and local Government agencies. It is pointedly blamed for stunting the economy of India. The Transparency International conducts study of corruption across the globe and ranks 180 countries as per their score on the scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) and India scored 39 during year 2023. When ranked India stood 93 among 180 countries where the country ranked 1 is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparing world wise score, the best score was 90 (1 rank) and the worst was 11 (180 rank) whereas average score was 43. Various factors contribute to the corruption, including Government officials siphoning money from Government welfare schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and National Rural Health Mission. Another area of corruption that includes trucking industry and it forces billions of rupees to be paid in bribe to numerous regulatory annually and a survey carried out by the Transparency International shows that the bribes money shared between Government regulatory bodies and the police is to the tune of 43 and 45 percentage respectively and the roughly estimated amount is around 250 crores. It is appreciated that the causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, complicated tax and licensing system, numerous Government departments with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly of Government control institutions on certain goods and service delivery and above all the lack of transparent laws and processes. There are variations in the level of corruption and in the efforts against corruption by the Governments across India.
Bribery occupies first place in the forms of corruption in the contemporary world. The Corruption Perceptions Index score for 2023 indicates that small countries like Denmark and Finland led a comity of 180 countries as very clean nations in the contemporary world. It is a well-established fact that Corruption across the globe has affected nations as a malaise despite Anti-corruption drives instituted through legal frame work. The Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 enacted in the Indian Parliament to combat corruption in Government agencies and public sector businesses basically consolidated and amended the law relating to the prevention of corruption and for matters connected there with. It provides for Appointment of Special Judges, procedure and power of Special Judges, offenses and penalties, and protocol for Investigations required to be carried for establishing cases with absolute clarity. However, limited success in combating corruption in Government departments necessitated amendments to the act to enhance scope of prosecution for punishing corrupt Government officials within defined time frame for dispensing justice.
The corruption attains mushrooming growth in innocence and ignorance. It requires free flow of information highlighting various social welfare schemes, healthcare infrastructure available in Government hospitals, Government run education institutes to educate people about their rights through various public platforms including audio visual social media links. The monster of Corruption like many other social evilscould possibly be controlled by multipronged approaches involving each and every citizen both individually and collectively. A well informed and transparent governance of resources discourages corruption in all forms, a free flow of information, accessibility to all entitled persons without any discrimination and a strict implementation of anti-corruption legal framework would lead us towards zero tolerance to corruption in real sense.
Coming down to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, it suffered deficit governance for almost a decade that pushed it down to eleventh most corrupt part of Indian Federation next to the State of Gujrat as per latest survey carried out in 2022 by Statista Research Department wherein Maharashtra emerged No 1(749 cases) and the Union Territory of Lakshadweep as very Clean with only Two cases of corruption during the period of survey. We have recently elected our representatives to form Government in JK and the onus of rejuvenating Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureaus shift to them so that celebration of next International Anti-Corruption Day on 09 Dec 2024 is celebrated with positive notes in this direction. It is also expected to enhance public participation in decision making not only to attain participatory governance but also to prevent the onslaught of corrupt practices both in Government offices and private businesses. Free Media and unrestricted public participation helps to improve transparency and accountability across the public and private sectors.
It may be appropriate to refer to a statement made by Angel Gurria, OECD (Organistion for Economic Cooperation and Development) Secretary at the Forum, “Planet Integrity: Building a Fairer Society” during March 2018 that “Integrity, transparency and the fight against corruption have to be part of the Culture. They have to be taught as Fundamental Values”. It infers that Corruption is a dreaded Social Malaise and society at large to own the responsibility of teaching values like Integrity and Transparency to future generations so that a corruption free society emerges of its own and there should not be any Vigilance or Anti-Corruption Forums raised for containing Corruption in all forms.
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