My earlier blog ‘Cans of Worms’ was about the big scams and corruption scandals in India over the last 7 decades. Corruption in India has taken on a huge, toxic dimension. It takes a cruel toll on the poor and is very troubling for the middle class. It has seriously compromised our polity and public systems and is pervasive across the country. It has eroded the quality and prospects of life for millions of Indians and aggravated the struggles of the majority populace of have-nots. The malaise has gone so deep that many good, educated citizens helplessly shrug that nothing can be done about it.
Western countries also have acute problems of corruption but it does not intrude into the day-to-day lives of their people. The venal ex-President and self–proclaimed billionaire Donald Trump has evaded paying income tax for many, many years. London is the welcoming, Go-to place for the world’s financial criminals as extradition is difficult. The serene beauty of Switzerland with the snow-capped Alps as shown in the Yash Chopra films is the picture-postcard version of it. The country’s banks have been the preferred havens for black money from all around the world. The Nazis were amongst their first customers.
Let’s hit the pot-holed roads. Their proliferation is such that the traffic has to navigate the holes to find the stretch of roads. The NCRB (National Crimes Records Bureau) finds that 5% of the deaths on Indian roads are due to pot-holes. The traffic police point to the same as the cause of long traffic jams in cities. This perennial bane can be resolved only if the roads are constructed with good materials and maintained properly. But there’s the rub. The 10% cut from the contractors to public officials and politicians has moved with inflation to 25%. The quality of roads becomes the first casualty. Poor roads or bridges or flyover construction is the fall-out. Let it be noted that one of the major reasons for China’s economic explosion was the focus on building good roads and infrastructure. Creating many, many jobs and driving economic growth.
The Public Distribution System (PDS) is supposed to cater to the food requirements of the neediest- the ration card holders. Instead, the sad reality is that the fair price shop owners sell the good quality food-grain in the open market by using fake ration cards. The BPL (Below Poverty Line) populace is often left with poor-quality residual stuff. As it is, the system gives them access to only items like rice and wheat, ensuring that the poor continue to suffer on the nutrition front. The program also has an urban bias because the rural areas are not well connected by an efficient transport system. But surprise, surprise! Uttar Pradesh has redefined the system by becoming the first State to achieve more than 95% food distribution through a transparent biometric identification system.
Let’s look at the Minimum Wages scenario outside the States’ Shops and Establishment Act and the Central Sphere of Employees. The major chunk of daily wage workers is in the informal, unorganized sector. The National Floor level wage for an unskilled worker is Rs 178/- per day. Varying from State to State and Cities and towns. But it’s no secret that these poor people are at the mercy of the Agents. Through a social worker friend of mine, I was shocked to learn that these middlemen appropriated 40% of their daily legitimate earnings if they wanted 20 days of work a month. Also, extending work hours by a couple of hours a day is deemed normal. Talk about ‘bonded labor’ in our cities. They remain gagged as the Principals, Agents, and public officials enjoy the spoils. Meanwhile, the law against underpayment or exploitation gathers dust within the legal tomes.
The Medical profession and the hospitals have also fallen from grace. There has been a positive side to Covid management in India but the flip side has been very disheartening. The black marketing of oxygen cylinders and drugs like Remdesivir has been reported in the media. Less so the extortion from some in the hospital management for the availability of rooms and beds. Overbilling and prolonging patient stay is common practice at many private hospitals across the land. But a particular data shared with me by a health professional friend stunned me- 22,000 pediatric claims at government hospitals in a State for Rs 15 crs; 30,000 child care claims amounting to Rs 165 crs in the same State by private institutions. Malafide intent goes even beyond this. HPR (Health Professional Registration) by the National Health Authority has been made mandatory in several States. Many hospitals are accessing or buying or leveraging such certification as a cover for billing and conducting procedures and surgeries by less qualified or experienced professionals. So you have the case of 1 registered eye specialist deemed to be performing 300 cataract surgeries a day at different locations. Eyeball-rolling, Really?!! Then there is the frightening scenario of quacks endangering the lives of poor patients by donning surgical masks and gloves and wielding the scalpel. In fact, the ‘The Wealth is Health’ mantra goes back to the late 1980s. An anecdote as told to me by a colleague- his friend, a senior employee at a pharma firm had to pay Rs 1 lakh a month to the Health Secretary to secure access for his Company’s products at government hospitals. As they became more comfortable, the babu confided that most of the money went upstairs.
Digitalization of the economy and business has had a positive impact. The Co Win App and the vaccination drive showed what the country and the governments are truly capable of. Listen to Sundar Pichai (CEO-Google) about UPI and the Covid Relief fund. “It’s remarkable. It shows up on an individual’s account immediately.” But E-Governance has not really freed the citizens from the corruption quagmire. A simple case of renewal of a driving license. One goes online, fills in the details, uploads the documents, and makes the requisite payment. All one gets is the transaction number. So multiple rounds to the RTO with the same documents to get the job done. Then the middle-man enters and the fees are paid and hey presto! The job is done. This is where corruption spooks the average Indian. For every standard routine matter, one has to grease palms.
Let’s dekko at the judiciary and the police- 2 important pillars of the State. There is this saying, ‘the fish rots from its head.’ So we have a retired Supreme Court Judge reluctant to let go of his perks- having 20 public servants at his beck and call for many months post-retirement. From ‘Your Honour’ to ‘My Lord.’ Two more cases illustrate the rot in the judiciary. In May 2015, a Hindi film star was sentenced to 5 years in jail by the Mumbai Sessions Court in a hit-and-run case. The same night the High Court convened and suspended the sentence. The Superstar walked out with the swag of a Sultan. On the other hand, you have nearly 3 lakh under trial who have been locked up for more time than their alleged crime warrants. But the Governments and the Courts which only cater to the privileged do not initiate the process to set them free. It is a truism that in India a number of litigants pass away before their Judgement Day on Earth. A fresh infusion of 1 lakh + judges and magistrates and the fast track model can only clear the staggering pile of cases.
The police have a dismal reputation for being amongst the most corrupt organizations. This will continue till the Union and State Governments let go of their feudal hold on the police through the much-needed police reforms recommended by Shri Prakash Singh, retired IPS officer, and endorsed by the Supreme Court in 2006. So we have a reinstated police sub-inspector in Mumbai extorting crores of rupees from bars and clubs and having unfettered access to the Police Commissioner and the Home Minister. More than 40 years back, I had heard from a senior police officer that Rs 50,000 was the price for a lucrative posting at one of the stations in the Bombay port area. This was the investment and a resourceful cop would certainly look forward to a multiple ROI. The same sleaze was again exposed by a report around a decade back. –the secretary of an MLA asking for Rs 15 lakhs for a posting to a particular police station. It was further elaborated that the asking amount would depend on the importance of the police station in their constituency and its income-generating capacity. However, it needs to be said that a critical part of the Police Reform Report says that the ground level Constable force be given more dignified living and working conditions.
Elections are high stake games with tons of black money involved. All political parties follow the winnability quotient from the Congress playbook- Money, Muscle, Caste, Creed. So you have the BJP in UP strongly supporting their ‘Bahubali’ MLA from Unnao, Kuldeep Sengar. Accused and later thankfully convicted for the brutal rape of a 17-year-old girl and later killing of 2 of her relatives in a planned road crash. Sengar had earlier represented the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, and the Bahujan Samaj Party. But this serious and blatant criminalization of politics and shameless horse-trading has not served as a wake-up call for any of our tall leaders.
The 2014 Lok Sabha election, according to informed sources, cost around Rs 30,000 crores. The political coterie in India has become an exclusive, self-serving club. Hence, very few top politicians end up in jail. Some of them increase their assets by more than 1000 percent from one election to another. The Companies Act 2013 and the Electoral Bond scheme 2017 do not provide for more transparency and do not work for the greater good. The possibility of anonymous corporate, individual, or even foreign funding has increased. Increasing the risk of public policies being framed for the funders and not the voters. A potentially scary situation.
With the budget session looming, signing off on the much-debated topic of Income tax. Only 3.2 lakh Indians declare income of more than Rs 50 lakhs annually; only 16.8 lakhs fall into the highest 30% tax bracket; only 5.83 crs IT returns were filed in FY 2022. Think about all this in the context of the 1 million SUVs sold in FY 2021; and that 30.85 lakh Indian tourists applied for visas in 2022 despite the pandemic travails. The parallel economy in India is estimated to be around 50% of the GDP. Despite DeMo and the increase in digitalization, the cash economy has grown from 10.7% of the GDP to 14.4% of the GDP to a record high of Rs 30.88 lakh crores. Easy to understand why ‘ the captive salaried class’ or the organized sector employees are fervently praying for tax relief in the budget. A recent Oxfam report has revealed that 64.3% of the GST collections have come from the bottom 50% of the population. High time for a more equitable review of both direct and consumption taxes and widening the base through lesser tax rates.
As the current Government has a clear majority in both Houses it should pass the much-needed structural reforms Acts-police reforms, revamping the judiciary, 30 % women’s representation bill, recall of corrupt representatives, and election finance laws and regulations (look at the French model). There is no hope for a Naya Bharat or a New India till this rampant corruption is controlled and minimized. Only well thought – through and transparent public policies and laws can reverse decades of neglect and indifference. The third largest global economy will not have a satisfying ring to it if India continues to feature in the highly corrupt and high inequality indices in the world order of nations.
A Fistful of Salt 