Anna needs an army of economic and financial experts

The Moving Finger Writes UPA’s unwillingness to fight corruption

MV Kamath

DOES anyone really think that corruption can be eradicated merely by passing a hard Lokpal Bill? If someone does so he must be living in a dream world on his own. First, consider the situation as it is: According to the Hong-Kong based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd (PERCL), India is rated as the fourth most corrupt nation among sixteen countries of the Asia Pacific Region, with Cambodia rated as the top, followed by Indonesia and Philippines. 

According to another study conducted by a Pune-based company, Indiaforensic, which has pioneered in fraud examination, security and risk management, the menace of corruption is Rs 1,555,000 crore in the last decade and the amount laundered out of India in that same period is at least Rs 1,886,000 crore. The latter figure is based on statistics provided by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which, apparently, could investigate only 70,773 cases between 2000-2009 with more cases remaining yet to be studied.

Corruption is not confined to any one class or set of organisations. It is almost universal, and to begin with, one can start with government officials. According to figures available, corruption cases against government servants have been steadily on the rise in just the past four years rising from 17.68 per cent in 2008 to 28.39 per cent in 2011. In these past four years as many as 3,621 cases were registered against government officers and ‘other persons’ with the CBI. Figures incidentally show that there has been a decline in the number of cases registered against people other than government servants from 52.86 per cent in 2008 to 41.97 per cent in 2011 but what comes as a shock is to realise that the disposal rate of cases has dropped from 33.49 per cent in 2008 to 25.62 per cent this year. In other words, almost three fourths the number of cases are still waiting to be adjudged or disposed of.

How long will it take for justice to be done? As for government servants – the high-ups like those in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) – one understands that as many as 208 are in the dock for not declaring their assets by June 2011. It will be interesting to know what action will be taken against them – and when. V Ramachandran, Member of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission has been quoted as saying: “We gave several recommendations to improve governance in our country, but the government did not implement them”. The tragedy is that corruption has spread through all sections of society, administrative, judicial, defence forces, not to speak of the media itself which latter prides itself as being the nation’s watchdog.

There have been charges against the kin of former Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan with media revealing that the CJIKs’ two sons-in-law and his brother have amassed properties disproportionate to their known income in the years when Mr Balakrishnan was holding office. It is now everyone’s knowledge how many Army officers have been involved in the Mumbai Adarsh Housing Society scam. Has anyone ever tried to look into the bank accounts or assets of retired officers of the defence forces? Corruption among politicians, of course, is par for the course, and the list is growing by the day. The latest in the list are two former Chief Ministers of Karnataka who are under legal scan and to whom bail has been refused. HD Kumaraswami who has so often been engaged in mudslinging at his successor YD Yediyurappa is now under inquiry. The BJP has accused him of denotifying 193.22 acres of land and causing a loss to the State Exchequer of Rs 2,000 crore. Such charges have now become almost commonplace.

One even takes it lightly to know that Abdul Kareem Telgi, prime accused in the multi-crore stamp paper scam owes the Income Tax Department over Rs 200 crore in tax dues. One wonders when it will be recovered – if ever. Then there is another department that needs looking into. It is claimed that Indian Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have received Rs 42,200 crore from foreign donors in the last five years. How has that amount been spent? Is there a check on the NGOs? Harsh Jaitli, office bearer of Organisation of Voluntary Network Association of India (OVNAI) has been quoted as saying that “there is a need to look into where the money is actually going”. That must be the largest understatement of the year. The trouble is that we take everything for granted.

According to conservative estimates, there are as many as 765 registered political parties in India, six (only six) national, 57 at state level and 702 others which together reportedly spend over Rs 25,000 crore a year just to maintain their offices and office-bearers. Has anyone ever asked where the money comes from and just as importantly how it is spent? Donors, it is claimed, seldom pay by cheques. What they give is black money. It is not that this is unknown. Between 1947 and 2009 there have been as many as a dozen studies on this subject. According to one study, between 1951 and 2009 unaccounted black money amounted to Rs 45,800 crores! According to another study by Global Financial Integrity Director Raymond Baker, quoted by Dr S Kalyanaraman, former Senior Executive of the Asian Development Bank, India lost a total of 462 billion dollars in illegal capital outflows between 1948 and 2008, representing more than twice of India’s external debt of 230 billion dollars.

When one thinks of these figures it is somewhat pointless to ask a policeman how much he makes out of corrupt practices when his take-home salary is not much higher than Rs 5,000 which is hardly enough to take care of a family consisting of a wife, an average of two children and often a pair of ageing parents. To stop corruption at lower levels, a Jan Lokpal Bill is not the answer. The answer is higher salaries. This is for the Planning Commission to think over. It is easy to damn clerks or petty cops many of whom are often called to work round the clock. They are paid a pittance, as if that is all they deserve. There are literally scores of private bodies, including established centres of research dealing with corrupt practices but it would be more to the point for all of them to coalesce into one all-embracing body to produce not only a comprehensive report but to suggest implementable remedies. Anna Hazare has a big job to do. He needs not Kiran Bedi but an army of economic and financial experts, working round the clock, to produce meaningful recommendations that should be acceptable to the Planning Commission.