Corruption, Good Governance, and Systemic Change

Manohar Manoj,

(Editor, Economy India, Author of the book, A Crusade Against Corruption and A Dialogue on System Change)

All the three constituent words of my discussion topic namely ‘corruption’, ‘good governance’ and ‘system change’ are interrelated ones. We all know, we have an enormous regime of corruption prevailing everywhere. This galloping corruption simply keeps us deprived of good governance and hence we have this present state of bad governance regime. Thirdly, in our country, bad governance is persisting, that is because most of the public institutions have been kept either unchanged or changed in a very lazy manner. It means we require a regular reshuffling of our all-public systems, only then we have the availability of a consistent sort of good governance regime with the spirit of a no-tolerance-to-corruption environment as well as nurturing of a full-proof system.

Highlights 1

Probity, Good governance and System Change are having the supplementary effects for one another.

Without checking corruption, we cannot bring good governance and vice versa

Without bringing change in our system, we cannot check corruption and ensure a good governance regime in the country.

2

I would like to say that corruption, which we portray as a big menace for all of us; in fact, it is not a present-day problem only. It has been the most gigantic and fundamental problem for our society and nation both vary since independence time, which has grown in our society in a progressive manner. However, corruption has been tackled also in our country by correcting our past mistakes, through reshuffling of our policies and building of new institutions. But, most notable has been the adoption of technology and the introduction of the concept of regulatory regimes on a case-to-case basis. However, digital and information technology, which is understood to be the decisive antidotes to corruption, unfortunately, are also becoming prey to new types of fraud now. These are the sort of frauds, which have not been defined yet properly in the textbook of corruption. This latest phenomenon of corruption, which we are witnessing now, is visible in our society in the form of ATM clowning and many types of fraudulent kind of fund transfers from the bank accounts of many.

Overall, corruption is the problem, which is the mother of our all problems; the object, which has been the DNA of our all public problems; a problem, which has taken the form of the protoplasm of our whole system.

Talk about our any system whether political, economic, administrative, or social, or anyone, this problem of corruption has gone deeper into all these systems; which eventually has formed itself as an inherent part of our whole national and social life.

However, it is like an immense surprise for all of us that this intensive problem and a pertinent issue do not have an adequate and consistent space in our public thinking. Although we have had the events of the Lokpal movement and demonetization drive in our country; which created a complete nationwide fervor regarding the removal of corruption and black money from the country. However, despite these two remarkable events, I still believe that our country has even not a fraction of thoughts- churning over this issue, what it requires both politically and intellectually.

Highlight 2

We all have been part of this saga of corruption and finally we suffered it too

Talking on the individual and social level, I would like to say that our mindset and social behaviors are such, that we never regard ourselves as responsible for the occurrence of any corruption. Whereas the fact is that, we are very much part of this problem called corruption. This is the problem we all have been its stakeholders and eventually the great sufferers of this corruption too.

First, we have to be very clear about our notion that corruption and malgovernance are key to all problems. Even today, corruption is not taken as the biggest obstacle in the smooth functioning of the system. What we see under our democratic setup, is the politics of corruption, which actually never acts as an effective antidote to corruption. The ongoing politics of corruption in our country either has created a culture of blame game or a defaming game. Under this, one can see how the rivals are being termed as the culprits of corruption and so on. It continues forever, but we never get a final solution. Therefore, we generally witness all ruling regimes have the same characteristics while dealing with corruption and at the same time, we see all oppositions have the common character while talking about this and that is to make scores over their rivals. In this tussle, we never have a permanent solution to this great saga of corruption.

The fact is that corruption is not limited to one or two areas of our system, its penetration is almost everywhere, the question is, where is it not there? Another point regarding corruption is that it is generally being taken in terms of its legal aspect only. Whereas it is a well-known fact, corruption is the outcome of so many factors; it is the outcome of inefficacies of law, it is the outcome of our bad policies, it is the result of malfunctioning of our institutions, it is the outcome of the lack of ethics and integrity, lack of awareness and above all it is the outcome of our self-centered approach and appeasement of our vested interests.

Remedies and reforms, the key to the good governance

 

Talking about the removal of corruption, primarily we need a bunch of realistic anti-corruption laws, second, we need a wide presence of anti-corruption policies in each and every sphere of our governing system. Third, we need a robust kind of institution building in our country. Fourth, we need a mass induction of all relevant technologies in all areas of governance. Fifth, we need to build a robust kind of work culture, work environment, and total quality management regarding governance and public deliverance. Sixth we need a high degree of public awakening against corruption and misdoings followed by harsh action against all those anti-corruption enforcement officials if they are found indulged in blackmailing and corruption activities and the seventh measure is an all-round ethical revolution to be spread in the country.

 

Highlights 3

Eight points formulae to check corruption

1. We need to draft clear-cut, simple and pinpointed sorts of laws
2. We need to erect a complete policy-driven system for every area of governance
3. We need to have a process of robust kind of institution-building
4. We need a massive induction of all sorts of required technologies in the governing system
5. We need to create a fantastic work environment and total quality management for all public offices
6. We need a massive effort to spread public awareness
7. We need to arrange hard punishment for the enforcement agencies if they are found indulging in blackmailing acts.
8. We need to go for the ethical revolution in the country

Talking about the democratic systems under which our four-pillared and three-layered democracy is operating, I would like to mention here, that this structure itself provides an inbuilt mechanism to counter corruption through a checks and balance mechanism. But unfortunately, our democratic structure does not have a proactive approach towards this. Nevertheless, it would be worth mentioning here that any single type of measure to check corruption will never have a fructified result; therefore, it always requires multiple correction mechanisms and interdisciplinary solutions.

Talking about the various mass movements fought out against corruption, barring the RTI movement, in fact, they were all politically motivated ones. Therefore, these movements have had no impact on its cleansing part.

Generally, it is being said that the Congress party and its various ruling regimes nurtured corruption in this country, but the fact is that under the ‘new economic policy’ which was started by the Congress duo of Narasimha Rao and Dr. Manmohan Singh actually eliminated corruption from the system in many ways too. It especially eliminated corruption which was germinating in the system through the state-controlled economic regime. I would like to also mention here, we have some tangible reforms over the electioneering front, but the question is why did we not think to start inner reform within the various political parties? The fact is that, in the absence of this, the agenda of political reforms has remained an unfulfilled task. That is why, we have scandals in all ruling regimes for all seasons, no end of it. There may be less revelation of scandal in a given period or in a particular ruling regime, but as far as structural corruption is concerned, its existence has been always there in our different systems. Therefore, our intelligentsia must have ideological honesty to accept that the existence of corruption, bad governance and insensitivity have hugely affected the lives of the deprived lot in our country.

I generally see, when a politician is being charged as corrupt, it is generally not being cover up by any other politician. Even in my media field, I generally find whenever there is allegations of corruption against some journalists that is generally not being negated or protected by the other journalists. However, on contrast, in the bureaucratic field, what I see, this fraternity never accepts even fair allegations of corruption against their any fellow persons. This is the reason; administrative corruption in our country is not being discussed in that proportion what it is required in our public discourse.

 

Status of political corruption and its reform measures:

In order to check corruption varies from its root, we need to first address our democratic political system. Our political system, which is known as ‘parliamentary democracy’, ‘federal democracy’, ‘three-tier democracy’, ‘four pillar democracy’, a democracy having the principle of separation of power, democratic governance which is run through the ‘rule of law’ and the ‘supremacy of legislature etc.. Amongst all these features of our democracy, actually, we have the very presence of both causes as well as remedies as far as corruption is concerned. We just need to make well-thought-out reforms and proper reshuffling for the sake of keeping these various political institutions free from corruption.

It is to be mentioned here, that corruption automatically gets a huge setback, when the supremacy of legislature is being ensured in an actual manner. But the irony is that, in real terms, we find the executive calls all the shots; it is the executive, who fixes both the duration and structure of the functioning of the supreme organ legislature; it is the executive, who decides how long the session of parliament will go and how many issues, bills, and other work schedule have to be carried upon during the stipulated legislature’s session period. Secondly, we always find the corium of the legislative house in a pathetic state and because of this, what we find sittings of the legislative house always gets hampered. Therefore, it does not seem correct to say that, we have the supremacy of legislature in our parliamentary democracy. If we were the truly supreme legislature in our political democracy, it could have checked corruption, committed particularly by the ‘executive’. Therefore, it becomes very necessary to permanently fix up the sitting of legislative houses to come under all three democratic tiers. To my mind for parliament, it must be at least 4 months or 100 days in a year. If we do so, it will enable more grilling of the executive by putting questions by the legislatures; thus making them more accountable and responsible to the public. Eventually, it enables corruption to be more revealed and discussed thus getting eliminated from the system. In order to make the legislature more powerful, meaningful, and impactful, nobody must be allowed to boycott any proceedings of the legislative session. If someone tries to do so, he/she must be fully punished accordingly.

Talking about eliminating corruption from the second organ of democracy, i.e. ‘executive’ (all ministries, depts., PSUs, boards, authorities, semi govt. organizations, etc.,), there must be a strong complaint redressal mechanism at every unit office level. There should be regular Janta Darbar, full transparency, performance & financial audits of all working staff on a daily basis, productivity reviews, cost and output analysis, maximum application of technology in all sorts of governance etc.; these kinds of measures must be sincerely applied.

As we know, in most of the offices, we have the vigilance department which has been instituted to keep an eye on corruption happenings. However, this cell in spite of being vigilant on corruption, has rather become a shareholder in the proceeds of all the corruption. The question is why we do not give this vigilance dept. the responsibility of making quick redressal of complaints coming from any kind of corruption.

To demoralize corruption and promote honest officials, we need to induct a system of incentive and productivity relative to wage policy, discontinue the policy of transfer and allow posting of the employees as per their convenience, lessening the days of holiday leave and giving one day weekly off in place of two days, what we currently, have.

For effectively checking corruption, the Judiciary requires to be modified in a drastic manner. In order to avail quick, affordable and fair justice to the people, we need to address all issues pertaining to computerization, simplification of laws, time-bound judgment, using more and more technology like polygraph test, viscera, DNA tests while making the judgment and finally fixing the proper fee-structure of the category of lawyers. There must be a campaign to clear out all the backlogs of court cases pending in all three tiers of the judiciary.

As we know, a roof cannot be laid upon unless it does have four-cornered pillars under it. Same way, our democracy has four pillars namely legislature, executive, judiciary and media. But, out of all these four pillars, unfortunately, the media is not an official/constitutional pillar of our democracy. It is not mentioned anywhere in our constitution. It is merely a notion being drawn from the fundamental right of expression that there would be an institution named press or media, which will play a big role in our democracy in order to strengthen ‘checks and balances’ and act more as a watchdog institution. Whereas fact is that, this media which may be very effective in order to strengthen one of the major concepts of our democracy called the ‘separation of power’. Second media may be a pillar that could watch 24 x 7 functioning of all three official pillars of democracy in a proper manner. Quite a few say that even without constitutional status, this media could enjoy more freedom. I feel this is merely a rubbish idea. I do not think regulation is any sort of antipathy to freedom. The fact is that freedom does not arise without regulation. Our judiciary is independent only because it has constitutional status and its power and duties have constitutional backing. This is the reason in spite of this fact judges are appointed and also paid by the executive, but they give their decisions against the executive. However, this thing does not apply to the fourth pillar of democracy, the media. The fact is that, this corporate-controlled media has no surety of sustainability and hence they have no accountability to the society, country, and democracy. We have either over coverage of things or we have almost the coverage of the things in media. Apart from this, several times it has to make a compromise with the executive. Media owners commit this for their economic interests and media persons do this for their professional interests and so on. I am telling all this, because I feel media, as a watchdog, better serves the cause of propriety and appropriation. As the history of America is evident; it eliminated corruption from its system, which very much attributed to the Press. The press has undoubtedly a much bigger role in eradicating corruption provided that it gets constitutional status and has a full defined role, responsibility, resources, and ratification for itself.

The above-mentioned reform measures prescribed for all four pillars of democracy proved to be a deterrent for all sorts of political corruption.

Political party reforms- In order to effectively check political corruption, we need a thorough reform process for all political parties in the country. Talking about political corruption, it is first important to make a proper arrangement of livelihood for those political workers, who are devoting their full time for this purpose. If it becomes like this, no political workers will have an excuse to commit corruption at least for their bread-and-butter purpose. What we generally see in the system, political workers revolve around their leaders and ministers for ‘transfer’, ‘posting’, ‘contract’, ‘admission’ etc. kind of work. If this reform takes place, it will bring effective checks over the corrupt activities of political workers resulting in improved character and quality both of public representatives.

Highlights 3a

Agenda of reforms for the political parties

1. To abolish the system of selling election tickets and also disallow granting of tickets on the basis of nepotism and flattering
2. Bringing all political parties under RTI cover
3. Promoting quality leadership and screening candidate on the basis of efficiency, honesty, dedication and their sensitive approach toward public
4. To establish a good governance cell by all political parties

These above-mentioned reforms will ensure the authenticity and quality functioning of political parties, which will ultimately purify the polity of the country. Further, this reform will stop the selling of tickets by the parties at the time of the election. It will check the influx of black money in the election; secondly, it will minimize the expenses and check the bribing of voters. Third, it will be promoting quality leadership by checking nepotism and flattery culture. Fourthly, it will induct honest, efficient, able and sensitive public representatives into the system.

Election reform—Election reform is one of the major parts of our democratic political reforms in the country. Since T N Seshan’s time, our election reform has crossed many strides; now this reform has gone to another level. After controlling the influence of money and muscle elements, now our electioneering system has to control the strong prevalence of identity politics viz. caste, community, creed, region, religion, language, culture, dynasty, instigating campaigns, hate speeches, bad candidature, etc. In order to check political corruption there are furthermore agendas, that need to be implemented; for example, keeping political parties under the RTI Act. The fact is that political parties have been kept away from the domain of RTI, despite this fact political parties are the bigger public forum, which should be definitely brought under this.

Banning caste rallies is also one of the bigger political reforms. Coming on the front of screening of candidates, however, it is not the subject of the election commission, but political parties should take this call very seriously and they must go for the generation of quality political leadership. The way some states like Rajasthan and Haryana have confiscated eligibility criteria for their third-tier local body elections, in fact are welcome moves. Now the time has come to implement it in all forms of three-tier elections and throughout the country. At the same time, it has to be adopted in the first and second-tier too.

These all-reformative things will make our electioneering more competitive, make governance more qualitative and election candidature more sense of integrity. In all, it will have lasting effects too in regards to attacks over corruption.

The menace of money in the elections is not yet over. The fact is that, during the elections, only the face value of money expense is being maintained, otherwise in actual terms money is being spent through many disguised means. In general, the quantum of money spent on the election is huge. This money is poured into the election in many implicit forms. As it is being reported out in one newspaper during the Tamilnadu election, around 9,000 crore rupees were spent which accounted to be per capita Rs. 3,000. We have the same stories in other states also. Voters are bribed by the government also through freebies like cow, radio, jewelry, free bus riding, free electricity and water etc. Second, even the legal expense ceiling what the Election Commission decides, is not a small one. In fact, it is beyond the capacity of any common contesting candidate. Therefore, whenever we discuss the money menace in elections, we should think about the provision of penalizing corrupt voters also; they should be barred for voting or they should be brought under anti-corruption trials in which bribe giver and bribe taker, both must be regarded as the culprit. If it is not, then there should be a provision for barring those voters for making their vote casts.

Highlight 3 B

There should be a provision for the punishment of corrupt voters too along with the contestants.

Local democracy—Democratic decentralization is actually being expressed by our local democracy. If we want to make this third tier of democracy, free from corruption and misuse of public money  allotted to them, then the third tier representatives must be also given a salary, allowances, and other facilities on the line of first and second-tier representatives. If we do this, then we could enable them with more accountability and loaded with responsibility. Secondly for establishing a better legislative level playing field, it is also necessary to divest the first and second-tier representative the executive power like the third tier representative, which they do not have except making recommendations to district officials.

Highlight 3 c

 There should be a provision for the proper salary and other facilities for the third tier representatives

Providing the same type of executive power to the first and second-tier representatives, what the third-tier representatives enjoy.

In all, we must go through following agendas of political reforms

Highlights 4

1. There should be acomplete new blueprint for all political parties in regards to their organization, functioning, funding, electioneering, screening of candidates, activism and drafting of their election manifesto.
2. Ensuring proper livelihood for all political workers
3. Formation of policy research cell over good governance and enhancing the quality of public leadership
4. Activities of all political workers must be fully redefined in terms of their entry, their nurturing, their functioning, their promotion, their eligibility for becoming office bearers, their candidature and also the compulsory training required for public leadership
5. Screening of candidate in a proper manner
6. A proper guideline is needed regarding raising and solving of various public problems and complains.
7. Making the funding pattern of the political parties fully transparent
8. There should be training courses for the aspirants of public leadership. If we can avail training and orientation courses for Admin and police people, then why should not be a pathshalafor our political people?
9. We need to completely eliminate all sorts of identity politics and supplemented them with good governance politics

 

 Administrative corruption and reform measures

 

I am strongly of the view, it is the administrative corruption, which teases people immensely and on a regular basis too. Therefore we need to start a bunch of reforms for them. First, we must have a comprehensive system for all kinds of complaints-redressal mechanism followed by a total quality office management. When we talk about corruption at the official establishment level, what we find, these all are the outcome of mismanagement or bad management there. Therefore, we need an introduction of a new culture of micromanagement in all govt. offices, which are found to be almost absent there.

 

 

Highlights 5

 

1. We need to establish a new micro-management culture in each govt. office establishment,
2. We also need to inject private corporate culture in all govt. offices, particularly regarding ‘cost consciousness’, ‘input-output balancing’, ‘strictness and smartness in dealing with clients’ and finally ‘the sense of surplus and profitability’, In the sameway our private companies need to adopt the welfare and democratic approaches of the govt. sector. In most of the private sector, what we generally find non implementation of proper labor laws and non availability of various provisions for the workforces, what they have been allotted.
3. We need a New personnel policy for the whole country, which must have a uniform pattern for all three tiers of democratic governments viz; center, state and local bodies, private and voluntary sector etc.. For creating better productive environment, we also need to introduce two shifts of working hours in all urban area govt. establishments. If we do this, it will first repel the traffic problems in both morning and evening time; as well as creating a new work culture avoiding pendency of work there.
4. To create a new work culture in offices, it is also necessary to dismantle all holidays barring 3 national holidays and major festivals of all religions viz. Deepawali, Dussehra, Holi, Eid,  Christmas, Budhpurnima, Guru Nanak Jayanti, MahvirJanyanti.
5. In India, government offices have become synonymous to long delays and lazy movement on behalf of its all rank and files.  I feel, there must be a fixed time period for every file. The way we mention now the completion time period of any construction project, in the same way, there must be a fixed time period for our all file movements in the offices. As it is said,  delay is also one of the reasons for corruption.
6. All govt. expenditure must have an outcome audit. If the organization is a commercial one and has a motto of earning profitability, then there should be an economic audit of it and if the expenditure goes to the public welfare areas, then the work of these organizations’ employees must have a social audit.
7. To keep the govt. offices free from corruption and non-work environment, it is not wrong to adopt the contractual job policy provided with the best sorts of working conditions.
8. We agree with this notion that our offices and organizations must have a disciplined environment, but that does not mean we keep continuing the culture of flattery and ‘boss is always the right concept in our offices’. No way is it in the larger interest of productivity and accountability.
9. A public servant must be characterized by its literal meaning which is the server of people with a high degree of alertness and sensibilities. But, in practice, we see public servants behave either as masters or as merciful men. If we adopt this corporate culture in public offices under which the relationship between bureaucrats and the public gets framed on the basis of managers and clients, we have a much better public deliverance.
10. Indian Administrative Service IAS must be converted or redesigned into Indian Administrative Management Service IAMS. If we do this, we will have a more holistic administrative environment in the country. It will give a big jolt to aristocratic attitudes found in various ranks and files of public administration. The Public servants, who have actually become the public teaser, must be made real public servants by this change.
11. Right to public service must have more public orientation and all grey areas of governance must be brought under this.
12. Reward and punishment approaches must be applied in a big way all over the public administration. Every scheme must have its one percent fund reserved for the various incentives to its executors and implementers.
13. All employees must have orientation courses to become the subservient, honest and good intentional approach for the public
14. There needs to be a mega plan of Police reform
15. In case of gross negligence of public service, there must be an application of a hiring and firing approach too
16.  There should be Target-oriented trapping of corrupt elements, say this year such numbers of corrupt have to be caught
17. For taking a new initiative over catching corrupt persons, all departments must come up with a white paper which can tell about, on which counts they have the presence of inbuilt corruption in their organization and how they will check it.
18. All anti-corruption agencies must have a performance audit regarding that how far they have been able to recover the bribery assets and also what is the cost of their recovery operation.
19. CAG, which is the most important anti-misappropriation agency, it should be given penalizing rights, what ex-CAG had suggested this? All audit reports of CAG must have serious follow-ups in order to check all old wrongdoings in the concerned area or scheme.
20. What we see the corruption cases picked by CBI or mandated by any govt. to them, are actually being done in a selective manner. CBI must be made a universal anti-corruption investigating agency with a high degree of neutrality, which could report all the occurrences of corruption in the country.
21. Talking about Central Vigilance Agency CVC, which has been merely an eye-washing agency, it needs to be more empowered.
22. All anti-economic offense organizations like ED, CEIB, Anti Bank fraud wings, they are also being used in a selective manner in the country, which should be checked and standardized on broader norms.
23. All the above-mentioned agencies must be given targets to apprehend corrupt persons (in lakhs), not in few hundred or thousands, so that no corruption committer left without getting caught. These agencies catch the cases merely in few hundred; it is just miniscule against such gigantic size of corrupt persons and the amplitude of corruption in the country. It also reflects this attitude of government who are more interested in harassing their political rivals and non-flattering public officials by misusing these agencies.
24. As we said above, in case any agency is found to be involved in blackmailing or corrupt practices or even wrongly harassing somebody, for the penalty/imprisonment must be many times more.
25. All judicial trials going over corruption must have clearance time for a minimum one day and a maximum 30 days, not more than this
26. Talking about the state anti-graft agencies in states, their performances are pathetic ones. The Anti-corruption Bureau, CID, and state Lokayuktas are just taking up a few cases of corruption against the mammoth presence of corruption in their terrain. This kind of thing gives us the impression that one who is going through his/her bad days and their zodiac is not under good shadow, they are only being caught otherwise everything gets managed over corruption. In the state government’s administrative machinery, the lowest sitting public officials in a village that is known as the trio of Amin, Patwari, and Circle officer at the circle office level and VLW, Village head/Gram Pradhan and BDO, at Block development offices level these both trio supposed to be the most institutionalized center of corruption at the lower level of our state administration. Same way in the police department, corruption starts to vary from the thana level.
27. There is a need to make provision of gallows in case bribery is over ten crores, there must be a provision of life term imprisonment in case the bribe amount is over 100 lakhs or we must have a penalty of just 10 times more money than this.
28. Last but not least all govt. servants must be made mandatory to take the oath of honesty, integrity and sensitivity towards citizens while joining their job.

  

Status of Economic corruption and reform measures

Now we come to the aspect of economic corruption. It is that type of corruption, which directly touches the living conditions and livelihood of the masses. We think the following agenda must be carried in order to repel economic corruption from our system.

Highlights 6

1. As we know under new economic policy, the policy of competition and public-private participation under a regulatory authority have a tremendous impact story.  We need to effectively implement the concept of regulatory authority on the line of TRAI in many other fields viz.; Health, Education, Public Transport( railway, civil airlines, road transport), in Infrastructure (Power production, transmission, distribution), in petroleum exploration and distribution, ports and shipping services, etc. On the one hand, it will promote competition, efficiency and also fair amount of market intervention in these sectors. On the other, it will eventually enable a better quality of goods and services on reasonable prices pertaining to both physical infrastructures and human development items to users. This move will bring course correction in these sectors and will ultimately eliminate corruption in many public sector operations.
2. There must be harsher punishment for hoarding, black marketing, adulteration, duplicity, underweight, overpricing, smuggling, hawala transfer, disproportionate assets, nondisclosure of income etc.. There must be a complete ban on all sorts of Ponzi schemes and all those NBFC companies who do not have full accreditation to run financial businesses.
3. No lending must be allowed without the same valued security.
4. Abolish all kind of subsidies and allow the granting of concessions only through fiscal incentives and capital subsidies only
5. Allowing transfer of resources and payment through Mobile, Aadhar and Bank accounts as much as possible
6. To convert the MGNREGA kind of program into a fully comprehensive program over rural infrastructure development program
7. Stop pay commissions and allow productivity & performance-linked wage increments only. In order to this, if some officials are found doing partiality, there should be severe punishment for them.
8. Stop corruption-ridden food security programs and in place of this try to raise the purchasing power of all poor through availing their comprehensive pension, wage hike and assistance through various social-human support. The food, grocery, and vegies market must be operated on the basis of the minimum and maximum price model. Minimum cost plus prices must be stipulated for the producers and maximum prices for the retail consumers. There must be no more than a 100 percent gap between MRP and MSP.
9. Indira Awas Yojana, which is renamed now as PradhanmantriAwas Yojana (PAY) must have a new model under which a newly designed home cum toilet to be provided to the all poor on a queue basis. Since all the above-mentioned employment, food, and housing schemes being run in rural areas are ridden with corruption, so, reform is needed in all of them.
10. To check the possibility of any sort of tax evasion, the Minimum Alternative Tax system (MAT) must be thoroughly operated, which has been unfortunately lifted by the finance minister now.
11. The contract system of construction work is one of the big avenues of corruption. This corruption is being done by overestimating any project or through poor quality of construction work. Viewing this scenario, we need a nationwide new construction policy, so that the best type of competitive bidding can be done and thereafter the contractor and engineers must have a fixed percentage of commission in order to make the contract system more transparent, quality-driven and cost-conscious. I think, it will check corruption in a big way.

 

An Ideal Parameter for the Performance of Any Government

Finally, we have drafted the points for judging the overall performance of any government on the following basis

Highlighter 7

 

1. How many leakages government is able to detect
2. How much better delivery mechanism a government has
3.   How far an austerity drive government is applying in the governance
4. How much performance and work audit of government employees are being done
5. How many resource transfers is being made through technology
6.          How cost-conscious a government is.
7. On what cost a quality public construction is being rendered by any government?
8. How much revenue a government is able to generate without burdening the public much
9.          How much efficient use of public assets is being done?
10. How much wastage and misuse are being checked by the government
11.       How many benefits are being accrued to the targeted people?
12.        How many culprits of corruption are being caught?

Highlights 8

Agendas for Fundamental Change

Initiatives to New Change

1. Our system should have an orientation of neither Communism nor Capitalism nor Socialism, it must have only Reformism.
2. There must be no hypocrisy, but rather transparency in all public discourses.
3. There should not be a set of clichés or rhetoric, rather we must have real-life issues in all public discourses.
4. We should not have the atmosphere of mere sloganeering, rather there should be an ideology-based change in every sphere of our public life.
5. We should not mislead anyone, rather we must have an approach to show the right path to the people.
6. There should be no status, in our system rather we must have an approach to go towards good governance, good politics, good society and imbibing good culture.
7. We must have no place for identity politics, rather politics should be oriented toward good governance only.
8. There is no need for making agitations to make anyone’s career in politics, rather we need to nurture the schools of public leadership everywhere.
9. There should be no allegations and counter-allegations on issues of corruption; rather we need to attack the root cause of all corruption.

10 There must be no appeasement; rather there should be true and principled secularism.

11 There should be no populism; rather we must have the arrangement to avail net gain to the people.

12. We do not need to provide subsidies; rather we need to provide support.
13. We should not allow tax evasion, we should rather go for comprehensive tax reforms.

14, It is not about making agriculture weak, but rather making it profitable.

15. We do not need to revolve around the Constitution but rather amend it as per the time, situations and requirements of the country.

16, It is not about adopting the formality of democracy, we rather need to re-structure and redefine all four pillars and three tiers clad with democratic governance of the country.

17. It is not about the Executive’s perceived superiority in a democracy, rather we must enable the Legislature above all the pillars of democracy.

Jai Hind