Bikash Choudhury
Chanakya has written in his Artha Sastra that “you can’t measure how
much water fish drinks in the pond; identically, it is extremely
difficult to find out the corruption in the bureaucracy” It was a
valid hypothesis then two thousand years ago and the same equally if
not more holds good even in current times. Our Govt. finances have
deteriorated from bad to worse at the back of populist schemes which
is good money down the drain as no durable assets gets created out of
such huge expenses from the Govt. treasury; further, the salary bill
alone some day would drive the Govt. to bankruptcy. The one lakh crore
Indian Rupee annual salary bill of our central Govt. alone could throw
spanner at fiscal prudence. Is their a way out? Yes, there can be a
long term solution if we can take a bold decision of accepting the
reality as a functioning society. Taking and giving bribes has become
second nature to Indians without looking at the Peking order in the
Transparency Index for Most Corrupt Nations; very unfortunate (can we
blame our colonial masters for this ill?) and therefore, preventing or
controlling corruption any time soon to spike up our economy is nearly
impossible. However, the gigantic size of the booty involved is hard
to ignore. If we assume that each government employee makes about
Rs.2000.00 in a month apart from his legal salary & perks of housing
and medical allowances; then, if we multiply the number of Govt.
employees both in Central, State Govt. and Local bodies then we will
arrive at a mind boggling figure of Rs. 20,000 Crores annually. This
sum would be much bigger than a few State Budgets put together.
Further, this speed money finds its route to political leaders and
political parties that once again intoxicate our entire polity and the
cess poll of illegal and criminal conspiracy of defrauding public
treasury gets repeated with few additional dimensions in each orbit.
Government employees not only the beneficiary of such a spurious
system; they, have become victims of such practice as well.
In one stroke we can do away with such a venal system by legalizing
all receipts of cash and gifts by Govt. employees over and above the
statutory requirements wherever it is applied; as a ‘token of service’
by the employee with a entitlement of 35-50% of such gain and rest
remains with the Govt. treasury. If this aberration were corrected
successfully then Govt. would earn additional revenue of over 10,000
crores of rupees without burdening ordinary people with any fresh
taxes and won’t have to worry about the salary hike of employees
through the 7th pay commission; while, greatly straightening our
administrative and political system for the benefits of all citizens
including the Politicians. There could be a windfall gain as economic
multiplier effect would operate in the private sector with merit based
activity in Industry and Service sector. Crony Capitalism could be
given a burial with ultra competitive forces based in meritocracy and
survival for the fittest principles would apply; that, should create a
research & development mindset across the polity & economy; thus,
creating substantial amount of wealth for the Nation to pursue its
social and secular goals. However, unfortunately politicians are going
to play the ‘bull’ in the house that intends to decide in favor of
such a new paradigm. Can we debate this at least in our so called free
media?
No comments:
Post a Comment