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From: Karmayog.org One of the focus areas of the Anti Corruption Bureau, Maharashtra, is to "Exercise Effective Corruption Control". This can be done by ensuring that Government departments are made citizen friendly and their procedures are designed so as to minimize opportunities for corrupt practices. - which are the points of corruption there, why, and how should the procedure be changed
Other information is at www.karmayog.org/anticorruption/ ACB news are at www.karmayog.org/acbnews/ Let's not be sceptical about curtailing corruption. Corruption is caused due to gaps in procedures. That's it. It's that simple and straightforward. Laws which are fair, and implementation procedures which are well thought out. That's usually all what's needed.
Regards, Vinay Responses (21-40) : 21. This may happen to Hindu communalists too; but Hindus are not united on the basis of their religion like Muslims. I know some Hindus, too, ignoring corruption of Hindu leaders if they talk of Hindutva.And communal riots boost vote banks based on religions.You will
We are an international consulting organisation, with a base in India. Some of our representatives from India have been working with governments, municipalities, hospitals etc. overseas (mainly in Africa) to help simplify procedures that have a direct government and citizen interface. We are not mere advisors, our speciality is actual implementation of such changes, using workplace teams, directly in the places of work. Improvements are quantifiable/ measurable. Our work has been recognised by UNDP. Our proposal for such a help has so far been approved by one government in India - for assisting five government departments in the secretariat, to begin with. This is the Govt of Gujarat. The project is yet to start. I know this not the mandate of Karmayog. However, it is perhaps good for you to know, that such a service is available in India. The processes and procedures are improved through a 'sytemmatic' step by step approach, by people participation, in the real workplace. The improvements are sustainable, and meet the objective of reducing opportunities for 'speed money'. Case-studies, testimonials etc. can be provided. Our website is www.kaizen.com However, being a new practise, not too much can be found on this subject on the website. Vinod Grover website: www.kaizen.com [ Am I glad to hear of this! 1. What are the steps involved to take it forward? Please outline them. 2. Please submit a formal proposal to ACB (with a cc to us) referring to M-PAC. M-PAC details are at www.karmayog.org/m-pac/ 3. You seem to be in Pune, Ahmd, and Delhi but not in Mumbai though.
To: s.parthasarathy Let me share some good practices to reduce corruption in RTO office. issuing Driving license. Education: 1. Set a hand book of practical traffic rules that a learner should know before he starts driving on the public roads. 2. Make this available freely in local language 4. Test with 20 questions in the RTO office every day at 2 or 3 times a day . Anyone who scores 70% or more should pass and can apply temporary license and get it right away and this should be mailed with acknowledgement for a first test of the address. After a month when he comes for the test. There should be predefined practical driving with the tester sitting next to the driver. 4 left turns, 4 right turns, back up, parking near the curb, signallling etc should each have a pass fail mark. Again 70% is required to give him a license. Any time he changes his residence he should only mail the new address with proof and get the renewed license with the new address delivered with acknowledgement by the Post man. Engineering: Ensure systems are in place to avoid shortages and timely action by the public and the government servants Enforce: have video cameras in areas where discretion is exercise to ensure there is evidence. have sting operation started by known honest employees with in the department to unearth black sheep to weed them out. This will hopefully reduce corruption here. Another area is accident and insurance claims. There is absolutely no reason for the government or intermediary in insurance claims. Insurance is between the customer and the company. The company should look at the damage to the vehicle. The customer should get 3 quotes and this should be settled on the spot if both the parties agree on the amount. The company can take a digital photo to ensure the same vehicle does not come back for the same damage etc. Company have different level of approvals depending on the collision damge. I am sure similar thought ful exercise in each area where corruption is rampant will help. [Interesting. Have you sent these to WIAA? What do they say? Vinay]
My suggestion pertains to excise department . At present the exporters get refund of terminal excise duty on goods exported by them . they have to apply to their respective range to get the refund of the same in prescribed format . The department is required to refund the excise duty in maximum 3 months time for the proper application received or else they have to pay duty with interest thereafter with 12 % ( If i am not wrong about the rate of interest) This 3 month time is often misused by department. Suggestion , Time required to be reduced to 15 days . This is more than sufficient to process the refund application . In any case , applications are thoroughly checked at the time of receiving the same . I am sure of this time frame as the refunds are often given within 10-15 days for the people with right words and pockets . I will also suggest that interest rate be reduced to symbolic 1 % per annum as it is not the interest which matters but getting the principal. I am sure this applies to most of the refunds to be received from govt departments be it octroi , sales tax , income tax etc. Just reducing the time required for process can reduce the corruption to great extent . I am sure citizens dont mind waiting for reasonable time . [I think I have not understood the points. Who is misusing the 3 month time? The excise officer or the exporter who has to get refund? The excise officer gains by delaying because the exporter will pay him to expedite. At the same time, the excise officer will not be internally pulled up for at least 3 months. Is that what you mean and thus you want to reduce the allowable refund time to 15 days? Anyway, 15 days is not feasible unless the filing is online. Interest rates which are higher than bank FD rates help the exporter getting the refund so why would you want to reduce it to 1% p.a. ? My, you want to really add insult to injury! Late money and less money too!!
27. 1. Corruption means SUVIDHA SHULK & it became necessary now a days because the service conditions of the officials are not up to the mark. 2. An official have the responsibilities of his / her families & the source of income are limited where as necessities are very high. 3. First of all officials should be well paid to control the corruption. Seniors officers/ Ministers level corruption must be control as our whole system became sick & defective. Punishments be strenghten & the disposal of the matter be fast & effective. 4. As per practice RISHVAT LETE PAKDE JAO TO RISVAT DEKER CHUT JAO. 5. Transperancy in system , one window fast service, time bound disposal of the matter. Award & punishments be applicable of the officials, honest hard worker officials be rewarded to set an example.
[1. necessary for whom -- the giver (suvidha shulk) or taker (low income) 2. and what should low income non-govt people do? steal? 3. the rich are honest and the poor are dishonest -- is that what you are implying? 4. ACB disagrees. They request people to come to them with examples of this if their own i.e. ACB's people have been doing this. 6. hmmm.... let me ask ACB and revert.
There are some suggestions. 1. First off, check movable and immovable properties of all Govt. Servants and their direct relatives. It can be maximum of the total salary earned plus any disclosed income assuming that he and his family does not require any money to sustain, i.e., for eating, clothing, shelter, etc. If it is more it means there is every chance that he/she is taking bribes. 2. Secondly, fix responsibility on the concerned officer or department to clear a case in a given reasonable time frame. Otherwise the case shold be considered as automatically approved. Or the loss to the person due to delay be made by fining the concerned official or officials. Dr.Nachane [1. Are you aware that all these people have to file their asset details every 5 years or every year (depending on state, etc.) with the Government. You and I would assume that the Govt. scans these for irregularities. But what actually happens is that these are put in their sealed condition in a sealed vault -- to be opened only if there is an inquiry against that person!! But seriously speaking, you do realise that what you are saying is that you a) do not care about invasion of privacy and b) govt officials should be presumed guilty unless they are proved innocent. 2. You do realise that it is extremely easy to ensure that a case is not cleared timely and thus you are actually suggesting a way for them to go scot free!
Good initiative—my views are given in a holistic manner in this 12 page paper I attach. I had not published earlier but only submitted to CVC, Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary when I was MD/ Konkan Railway. But except for a long meeting with the CVC who discussed some of my points- nothing much to my knowledge happened. Now this paper can be published and use the same. B. Rajaram M.Tech., FIE., FNAE IRSE Inventor Anti-collision & Skybus Technologies Phone: +91 98857 00007 Fax: +91 98850 14092 email: director@... My Video Channel [Thanks. The article has now been published at http://www.karmayog.org/redirect/strred.asp?docId=2587 and is being forwarded to the ACB. Regards, Vinay]
[Thanks. ISO is a good idea to begin with. Hopefully, some ISO experts can clarify. Regards, Vinay]
To: Karmayog.org Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 9:10 PM Subject: Re: Pl suggest systemic changes in Govt. procedures to reduce Corruption That is incredible- I am impressed by your fast publication! Please see if you can forward also to Planning Commission and Prime Minister's office from your side as well as to other websites having relationship with you. May be you can cause a revoultion through the net!!! Let me express my deep gratitude to you. Till now I did not share with public these papers- may be time to do so! By the way, they had informed that that is a better way to reach the PMO. Regards, Vinay]
From: ask34amin@aol.com The Mafia government has sealed the wheels of justice so that no one from the public can touch them. The only way to remover Mafia from power is for India Inc. is to stop casting their votes in etch and every election. This way the whole world will know about how our Mafia governs our nation. [Don't be silly! Asking people to cut their nose to spite their face!! Vinay]
I am a lawyer and am interested in reducing corruption in legal work and if you have ideas please let me know. I am on websites at www.jaychauhan.com and www.jayantchauhan.com. Jay [Great. The way to begin would be a checklist of steps that should be taken by the judiciary, court procedures, etc. But since you are based in Canada, I wonder if you could prepare those. Or do you have some other ideas about how to go about it? Regards, Vinay]
Subject: Govt. WEBSITE to reduce Corruption 1] Vinay online filing /payment for renewal / change of address etc of DL, Election Card, PAN card must be allowed. PUNISHMENT for wrong details, cheque bouncing must be severe. I have to renew my DL and I am dreading the waste of a day to travel and stand in line for renewal. 2] Pls see the website below. Act Now for a CORRUPTION FREE INDIA. Can you imagine this happening in INDIA?
2. Punishment for cheque bouncing is as severe as it can get. 3. Thanks for this website details. I was not aware. Will spread the word. Regards, Vinay]
1. Since I am from Mysore and you had asked suggestions for Maharastra only, I thought of not responding to your email. You are correct in asking to be very specific and not giving general or idealistic solutions. We have had enough of this already and we need to think in a holistic and practical manner. For what it is useful, let me give some efforts of our fighting corruption at local and national level for you to draw your own conclusions from Mysore. 2. RTO, Building proposals Department (of enforcers of building bye laws in our case), PDS kerosene, LPG distribution, and Registrar's office are the fountain heads of corruption for us also. Octroi dept is not applicable here luckily since we do not have it. 3. We have tried to find the basic reasons for corruption in each of these departments, interacted with the department heads, filed cases against the corrupt to the Lok ayukta etc. All these had little impact. Now the latest tool available is RTI and it is hyped as the panacea. So far our experience with that also has not been encouraging just like Consumer Protection Act which was supposed to have solved the problem of corruption in government service departments. Now no one even talks of CPA for that purpose. 4. Two fundamental reforms are needed. One is to totally revamp the justice system. We talk of justice delayed is justice denied. We have such an elaborate system today, courts have become a big hindrance than a facilitator. Of all the reforms we talk of we need to undertake this on a war footing if we want any chance of fighting corruption at any level. Those who accept bribes or gives bribes can compute expected profit or loss and figure out they can easily take a chance since they being caught and punished is very very small. Unless we change this, we just cannot fight corruption. For politicians it used to be zero probability. Fortunately it is changing now though slowly. One of the reasons for low level of corruption in the US is high degree of being caught and punished. Otherwise they are not any more better than we are in ethical practices. Of course their higher economic standards are a big help. But look at India. Who are the ones who give bribes and corrupt the system? It is the well to do. Poor are outside the economic system often. 5. Second we need to reduce the chances of the need to give bribes by eliminating the built in system to force the people to be unethical. One of the respondents to your email talked about the property system of Poona. When the authorities have the discretion to fix the rate between 5.5% to 7.5%, naturally they will take bribes to fix it at lower rate and people are also willing. This can and should be fixed easily. But politicians do not like such objective laws since they have the enormous power to monetize such flexible laws to their advantage. 6. One such system is PDS for kerosene and subsidized LPG pricing and a big difference between petrol and diesel prices. I am an international energy expert and have studied this problem in several parts of the world and have helped to reduce corruption the country of Georgia. 7. I have been struggling at the national level and local level to reduce corruption in petroleum sector from Mysore with some success. I am estimating corruption level in petroleum sector to the extent of Rs. 40000 crores per year. 8. My articles have been published in many places. They have had not even a ripple considering the fact it is the mother of all corruption. Planning Commission has also made similar suggestions as I have to completely eliminate corruption in PDS by using smart card, or coupon system (some one was using the word stamps) as suggested by us. But the political system does not want it. 9. I am attaching two articles for your perusal. We successfully implemented the coupon system for PDS kerosene and eliminated corruption. But when we tried to introduce at the state level, it failed because of strong lobby by kerosene dealers who are politically connected. Bhamy Shenoy Convener, Mysore Grahakara Parishat [Thanks for the food for thought. Some off-the-cuff remarks: 2. Can you get a team of students to go to each of those offices and make a detailed report on all the points of corruption and how they can be reduced? 4. Yes, speedy justice is by far the most and best macro solution to corruption. I too wonder why such an obvious thing is not being pushed very hard by the PM, etc. 5. The applicability of lower and higher rates must be quite well defined. The people don't know it. So transparency is the problem, not discretionary power, I would feel. 5. Are laws made by politicians or by bureacrats? It is worthwhile for all of us to understand that. I am not very clear myself. 6. Very very interesting. Would you be willing to take charge of an 'energy' section in Karmayog. Pl see the "manage a resource section' link in the home page and also the 'electricity' section under 'Mumbai Issues'. 7, 8. Hmmm... 9. Thanks. Will upload and circulate in the group. Will ask the Rationing Kriti Samiti to comment. Regards, Vinay]
1. last year's funds that r usually reveived only recently need to be spent befor 31st march and there really is no time to get proper tenders. bills are collected without goods being received and submitted. plenty of scope there to favour people who grease the palms of all functionaries from superintendent, principal down to the clerk. [So what do you suggest should be done. Vinay] 2.I was shocked to learn recently that patients are made to pay money for the vaccines supplied free by the govt.especially if they are illiterate and poor. It goes along side the supply of some of the optional vaccines which are given to patients at subsidized rated by the staff, from multidosed vials so it is difficult to catch them. [So what do you suggest should be done. Vinay] 3. when people even doctors , nurses etc retire their papers are not sent in time and are detained at every table both in the local office as well as higher offices in Bhubaneswar till bribes are paid. similar payments have to be made for each transfer , regularisation of leave, pension, Gratuity etc. [So what do you suggest should be done. Vinay] 4. the corruption of doctors, who demand money to operate,give anaesthesia, and even to give deep x ray therapy to cancer patients must be experienced to believe. [Why does no one hit them? Vinay] will send u some more later [Please send solutions. Don't increase my BP -- can't even go to these doctors now :-) Vinay] Dr. suvarna devi
1. Publicity and bad name are two great deterrents to corruption. ACB needs to give a lot of publicity to corrupt officers who have been caught and punished. People like to read these incidents. 2. Also, people who have benefited by offering bribes need also to be known. Unless there is social stigma attached to corruption, it will not be contained. 3. Today, corruption is an accepted way of life. One can see a policeman accepting bribe on a road side. There are regular reports of so called plum postings (or punishment postings) of Income tax officers, police officers. Tehelka has shown how corrupt army officers can be. Politicians need not even be mentioned. Politics has become synonymous with corruption. Dowry rates of Government officers go up, depending on the cadre. - CCDayal [Thanks. 1. Yes, name and shame is important, and ACB traps are very frequently covered in the papers nowadays. But I would like to add two other areas that should be publicised by the media --- a) focus on the citizen who trapped the corrupt official. When we will read more about the ordinary citizen who could do so, we will all be empowered and may develop some spine. b) Some interviews of the family members and friends and colleagues of the corrupt officer should be done otherwise soon other corrupt govt officers will start feeling "so what if it was reported". 2. If anyone reports that so-and-so has bought a flat here-and-here, or went to a holiday abroad, etc. ACB will swing into action. Moreover, the person who conveys this does not have to reveal his identity to ACB. 3. All wrong-doings have become an accepted way of life. But it is each of us who has to start resisting this and at least writing about actual instances and people involved, and not just watch the Tehelka bravehearts from the stands. Regards, Vinay]
We have recently opened an office in Mumbai. The website is in the process of being updated. I have asked one of my colleagues, who has pioneered this practise, to provide details/ proposals etc., as advised by you. Complements for the exceptional work you and your team have been doing.. Vinod Grover 40. There are some fundamental changes have to be made.
1.The wages of Government employees should be very fair. At least 80% of what is given in the comparable work force in private industries. I am suggesting 20% less because the benefits and the Security of the Government job.
2. The morality has gone down, ethical standards have bottomed in Govt. jobs. So only way to bring them up is to reward the honest workers big way in public.
3. Publicize all the honest and moral cases publicly, and have media regularly publish such stories.
4. The teaching in some religions like Christianity, Islam and Jainism, which emphasizes certain qualities in people, e.g. Mercy, non violence has come out because it was prevalent that time.
You have to make a new religion where anti corruption is preached. [ 1. Wages should be fair. By the way, I take it you are implying that all the Govt. staff in every department has sat down and calculated how much they are being underpaid and then set up a bribe collection system to meet the shortfall.
2. Yes. Would you be willing to sponsor some cash prizes for such people if some NGO would be willing to organise such an event?
3. Media should publish stories about how X officer does his work honestly !? Who would want to read that? Would you?
4. Each and every religion preaches anti-corruption!! |
| Also see : ACB in the News, Anti-Corruption, M-PAC |
