Couple of days back I was with a Municipal officer to discuss a project, while we were busy discussing he got to know that old age pensions for that particular month were yet to be distributed, he looked upset and inquired the concerned clerk on the reason for delay, the response was modem was not working hence instructions could not be passed to the bank. It was 22nd of the month and the pension is a paltry 300 Rs /month and it is delayed by 3 weeks. The pensioners would have gone to the bank multiple times to collect Rs 300. They would have spent have the money on travel.
This is a typical example of government services reaching the citizens; a hardened and emotionless bureaucracy does not have accountability. There are exceptions like this officer who was genuinely concerned however the general apathy in the bureaucracy is a reason for disaffection among citizens on govt services.
As citizens we need to interface with multiple govt depts/services on a regular basis water, electricity, property tax, Income tax, Public Distribution Shops, Passport etc being a few of them. Citizens experience friction whenever they come in contact with govt services. Rule books are thrown at the hapless individuals by the babus to make a quick buck to help resolve some or other teething issues. The babus have an advantage of better knowledge of the policies and procedures hence they twist and turn the citizens till they oblige with some bakshsish.
The RTI act is a great tool to shake the govt but there are attempts being made to dilute it and more importantly RTI activists are being threatened by mafias with dire consequences. A colleague of mine is an RTI activist and focuses his energies on saving lakes in and around Hyderabad; he says real estate mafias keep bothering them hence they need to tread carefully.
The issue is the formidable collusion between the politician and the bureaucracy, combined they are robbing the hapless citizen day in and day out. How can the govt energize its cadre to serve the citizens efficiently, is there an incentive for the bureaucracy to be efficient?
This is a country where we allow food grains to rot and let millions suffer from malnutrition, no one is accountable, some story is told to the Supreme Court. We should learn from China, they too are corrupt but are learning fast and are improving services to the citizens at an amazing speed. They rank better than India in the Transparency International corruption index.
Take the example of Income tax, they harass the common man but we do not see them going behind the high and mighty. Are we saying all politicians and industrialists have clean income tax records? The raids on this class of people are only for headlines, post the raid it is cold storage and back door settlement. I know one of my colleague had to shell out 30,000 Rs recently for a minor infraction after being harassed on some technical aspects which is difficult for the common man to understand. Govt wants to increase the ambit of income tax coverage but the process is not yet friendly and the dept is not citizen friendly. Their aim is to harass the honest and hard working citizen and let go the powerful.
There is lot of despondency about all this but there is a ray of hope, penetration of IT is helping improvement of services but our babus are finding ways to circumvent the process that needs to be fixed. I find ESeva of AP to be good example. It should be made more popular (this service started of well but seems to be on the decline) and penetrate into the towns. Govt should open more such kiosks across the country and provide most services to the citizens, take away the discretionary powers of the bureaucrats and perhaps the bureaucrat himself.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Reflections on the year gone by
After a decade a mixed achievements it is time to look forward for a period of faster growth and more even spread of prosperity in the country. India has done well to hold on to its own during the two significant downturns in the decade (the dotcom burst in the early 2000’s and the more recent 2008/09 recession). It has received all round praise for its Macroeconomic policies and the growth rate it is clocking year on year. We have won a war in Kargil but did not do as well in handling internal strife’s Maoists, Kashmir and Northeast. Poverty is in general declining but we are nowhere in the human development index (119th rank out of 169). India ranks 84/180in the corruption perception index, we have to go back to the drawing board on how to tackle this cancer in the system (In the government as well as the society).
With all the above we can take comfort in the fact we are still the largest democracy in the world and the most stable one in the south East Asian region. Democratic institutions see to work with all the limitations.
However the recent events CWG, 2G, Justice Balakrishnan, and Adarsh etc should be a serious cause of concern and puts a big question mark on our faith in the overall governance and the institutions.
Serial scams are draining the citizens’ belief that the country is in the right hands. The Prime Minister is an honorable man and no doubt the cleanest public figure in the country today, but what is the use if his men are stealing the wealth of the nation.
30,000 crores spent on the CWG games and no one is sure how much was spent usefully. As per UN estimates we could have built 2 crore or more toilets in a country where >70% of the population do not have access to toilets.
The 2G scam is even more scandalous, the related Radia tapes show the depth of collusion between Politicians, Journalists and the Industry. Popular Journalists passing off as defenders of truth in public life where shown to have feet of clay.
I am not confident that anything substantial will happen in either of the above cases since the independence and integrity of the agency probing is itself under serious question. CBI creates big news conducting raids and then goes dead silent for years. As I write this the IT appellate tribunal has spelt that Win Chadha and Ottavio Quattorcchi have indeed been paid bribes by AB Bofors while the same CBI is trying to close the case against Quattrocchi. So we know where the CWG and 2G investigations will go.
It is a bitter end to the year 2010 with a whole lot of scams and a lot of questions in our minds. Let us hope that this decade will see more constructive politics and continued prosperity in the country.
With all the above we can take comfort in the fact we are still the largest democracy in the world and the most stable one in the south East Asian region. Democratic institutions see to work with all the limitations.
However the recent events CWG, 2G, Justice Balakrishnan, and Adarsh etc should be a serious cause of concern and puts a big question mark on our faith in the overall governance and the institutions.
Serial scams are draining the citizens’ belief that the country is in the right hands. The Prime Minister is an honorable man and no doubt the cleanest public figure in the country today, but what is the use if his men are stealing the wealth of the nation.
30,000 crores spent on the CWG games and no one is sure how much was spent usefully. As per UN estimates we could have built 2 crore or more toilets in a country where >70% of the population do not have access to toilets.
The 2G scam is even more scandalous, the related Radia tapes show the depth of collusion between Politicians, Journalists and the Industry. Popular Journalists passing off as defenders of truth in public life where shown to have feet of clay.
I am not confident that anything substantial will happen in either of the above cases since the independence and integrity of the agency probing is itself under serious question. CBI creates big news conducting raids and then goes dead silent for years. As I write this the IT appellate tribunal has spelt that Win Chadha and Ottavio Quattorcchi have indeed been paid bribes by AB Bofors while the same CBI is trying to close the case against Quattrocchi. So we know where the CWG and 2G investigations will go.
It is a bitter end to the year 2010 with a whole lot of scams and a lot of questions in our minds. Let us hope that this decade will see more constructive politics and continued prosperity in the country.
Reflections on the year gone
After a decade a mixed achievements it is time to look forward for a period of faster growth and more even spread of prosperity in the country. India has done well to hold on to its own during the two significant downturns in the decade (the dotcom burst in the early 2000’s and the more recent 2008/09 recession). It has received all round praise for its Macroeconomic policies and the growth rate it is clocking year on year. We have won a war in Kargil but did not do as well in handling internal strife’s Maoists, Kashmir and Northeast. Poverty is in general declining but we are nowhere in the human development index (119th rank out of 169). India ranks 84/180in the corruption perception index, we have to go back to the drawing board on how to tackle this cancer in the system (In the government as well as the society).
With all the above we can take comfort in the fact we are still the largest democracy in the world and the most stable one in the south East Asian region. Democratic institutions see to work with all the limitations.
However the recent events CWG, 2G, Justice Balakrishnan, and Adarsh etc should be a serious cause of concern and puts a big question mark on our faith in the overall governance and the institutions.
Serial scams are draining the citizens’ belief that the country is in the right hands. The Prime Minister is an honorable man and no doubt the cleanest public figure in the country today, but what is the use if his men are stealing the wealth of the nation.
30,000 crores spent on the CWG games and no one is sure how much was spent usefully. As per UN estimates we could have built 2 crore or more toilets in a country where >70% of the population do not have access to toilets.
The 2G scam is even more scandalous, the related Radia tapes show the depth of collusion between Politicians, Journalists and the Industry. Popular Journalists passing off as defenders of truth in public life where shown to have feet of clay.
I am not confident that anything substantial will happen in either of the above cases since the independence and integrity of the agency probing is itself under serious question. CBI creates big news conducting raids and then goes dead silent for years. As I write this the IT appellate tribunal has spelt that Win Chadha and Ottavio Quattorcchi have indeed been paid bribes by AB Bofors while the same CBI is trying to close the case against Quattrocchi. So we know where the CWG and 2G investigations will go.
It is a bitter end to the year 2010 with a whole lot of scams and a lot of questions in our minds. Let us hope that this decade will see more constructive politics and continued prosperity in the country.
With all the above we can take comfort in the fact we are still the largest democracy in the world and the most stable one in the south East Asian region. Democratic institutions see to work with all the limitations.
However the recent events CWG, 2G, Justice Balakrishnan, and Adarsh etc should be a serious cause of concern and puts a big question mark on our faith in the overall governance and the institutions.
Serial scams are draining the citizens’ belief that the country is in the right hands. The Prime Minister is an honorable man and no doubt the cleanest public figure in the country today, but what is the use if his men are stealing the wealth of the nation.
30,000 crores spent on the CWG games and no one is sure how much was spent usefully. As per UN estimates we could have built 2 crore or more toilets in a country where >70% of the population do not have access to toilets.
The 2G scam is even more scandalous, the related Radia tapes show the depth of collusion between Politicians, Journalists and the Industry. Popular Journalists passing off as defenders of truth in public life where shown to have feet of clay.
I am not confident that anything substantial will happen in either of the above cases since the independence and integrity of the agency probing is itself under serious question. CBI creates big news conducting raids and then goes dead silent for years. As I write this the IT appellate tribunal has spelt that Win Chadha and Ottavio Quattorcchi have indeed been paid bribes by AB Bofors while the same CBI is trying to close the case against Quattrocchi. So we know where the CWG and 2G investigations will go.
It is a bitter end to the year 2010 with a whole lot of scams and a lot of questions in our minds. Let us hope that this decade will see more constructive politics and continued prosperity in the country.
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