It is not sounding very good by getting 85th rank in Global Corruption Barometer . Its a very harsh comment for me for my country india. Might be our politician will be happy to hear that effort is very fruitful and we got 85th rank in Global Corruption. I will ask the question to our Govt (So Called Modi Govt) then i will get an answer that in past 70 years congress did Corruption so we are inn this stage.
Transparency International’s latest survey has uncovered that India has the highest bribery rate in Asia. According to the Global Corruption Barometer published by Transparency International, India has the highest bribery rate in Asia. The report released just before International Anti-Corruption Day, December 9, shows that almost half of those who paid bribes in India were asked to, while 32% of those who used personal connections said they would not receive services like medical care and education otherwise, without bribing. The findings are a scathing indictment of the anti-corruption claims of the ruling dispensation, which came to turn on the board of a san’s corruption India.
It is widely recognized that unlike numerous countries, where corruption is restricted to the highest echelons, the malaise goes down to the lowest degree of administration in India. While big-ticket corruption grabs eyeballs, the ordinary frivolous corruption haunts the average person.
Decentralized corruption can’t be handled through any centralized fix. What is required is to enable ordinary individuals to expose and report crime locally, and systems that act immediately on these complaints to consider degenerate officials responsible.
Whittling down of RTI
Perhaps the most effective tool available to ordinary citizens for exposing corruption in the last 15 years has been the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The law has been used by more than three crore individuals in the country, especially by the poorest and the most marginalized who have understood the tremendous potential of the law to engage them to access their fundamental rights and entitlements like rations, pensions and medical care.
A 2011 study by Yale University in India showed that using the RTI Act is as effective as paying a bribe in ensuring service delivery! The law has also been put to practical use by public-spirited citizens to light corruption and abuse of force in the highest offices.
In 2019, despite stiff opposition within and outside Parliament, the LOK SABHA pushed the RTI (Amendment) Act which compromised the autonomy of information commissions by allowing the central government to determine the residency and salaries of all information commissioners. The functioning of commissions has also been severely impeded by governments not appointing information commissioners in a timely way.
The history of the BJP-drove government at the Center has been particularly abysmal. Since May 2014, not a single commissioner of the Central information commission (CIC) has been appointed without citizens moving toward courts.
The Global Corruption Barometer shows that 41% of individuals surveyed in India paid bribes to obtain official documents, like identity papers, and 42% paid bribes to the police. Tackling this kind of unity experienced by individuals in their day-to-day existence requires an effective timebound mechanism at the local level to manage complaints arising out of corruption and wrongdoing.
Broken promises
The Grievance Redress Bill introduced in Parliament in 2011 made architecture for receiving and dealing with complaints close to individuals’ place of residence down to the panchayat and municipal ward levels. It sought to make the supervisory structure responsible for resolving complaints in a stipulated timeframe, with disciplinary consequences for failure to do as such.
The Bill, nonetheless, lapsed with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha after the 2014 elections. Despite its survey promise to reintroduce the Bill in Parliament if it came to drive, the BJP has failed to do the needful. An effective grievance redress legislation would have helped significantly diminish arbitrariness and corruption caught in the Transparency International report and ensured better access to essential services and entitlements for individuals.
Giant cardboard cutouts of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi. Photo: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton/File Photo.
Even the Lokpal regulation intended to handle corruption involving senior functionaries, which was passed after a long and arduous struggle in 2014, has been subverted. In 2016, critical provisions regarding mandatory public disclosure of assets and liabilities of public servants were whittled down through amendments. For five years, after the law was passed, the chairperson and members of the Lokpal were not appointed.
Finally, how a selection committee made appointments with a more significant part of the public authority and its representatives raised severe doubts about the independence of the Lokpal even before it became operational. Subsequently, the govt did not make the requisite rules for almost a year, prompting one of the Lokpal members to dedicate his resignation.
The anti-corruption ombudsman is a non-starter, with a deafening silence from the institution on all new allegations of big-ticket corruption like the Rafael defense arrangement and banking scams that have shaken the country.
One more significant finding of the Global Corruption Barometer is that while reporting corruption is critical to control its spread, as numerous as 63% of individuals surveyed were profoundly worried about retaliation. This worry is not misplaced. Fierce attacks on whistleblowers and RTI users in the nation have highlighted the vulnerability of those who try to show reality to control.
In 2018 alone, 18 individuals were killed for blowing the whistle on corruption based on information accessed under the RTI Act. Despite this, the public authority has failed to outline rules and operationalize the Whistle-Blowers Protection regulation enacted in 2014 to provide a statutory structure for concealing the identity of whistleblowers and protecting them against victimization. The law establishes a mechanism to receive and enquire into complaints against public servants relating to offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
When the BJP came to control riding on the board of fighting corruption and ensuring effective service delivery, it was expected that the public authority would immediately set up a strong anti-corruption and grievance redress structure.
In the last six and a half years, be that as it may, critical anti-corruption legislations have languished, and the public authority, despite widespread opposition, has pushed ill-conceived programs like demonetization and electoral bonds as the definitive solutions to the issue of corruption.
Limitations of relying on technical fixes like Adhaar-based biometric authentication in fighting corruption have been exposed through scams like the Jharkhand scholarship fraud. The Transparency International report should serve as a strong signal for the public authority to course right, provided it has the political will.
