we can flush out corruption from India

["Rajeev Sinha" <rajeevksinha@hotmail.com>]

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The corruption in India is as old as the history itself and its tentacles
are deep into the system. But in recent days it has appeared in the ugliest
faces. Though I would like to discuss here only that face which involves the
money transaction. Time to time political parties there, with all its
politicians (needless to say corrupt politicians) rant the sky with some
catchy slogans that they are going to remove corruption in next few days,
but unfortunately corruption is very much there to stay and it’s become a
rule rather than exception. You can face it, feel it on every walks of life.
Go to any government office you will feel how the so-called officers suck
the blood out of you. And the result of this corruption is that even after
five decades of independence half of the Indians are illiterate (i.e. they
are quite ignorant of the three R’s and can’t even write their names) and
more than 35 crore population is below the poverty line and live in abject
poverty. If we look at the Indian economy, in terms of purchasing power
parity, it’s ahead of the America, Britain and many so called western
developed countries, but by the grace of our great national politicians we
are among the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world.

Despite that I see silver linings of hope that if the current government
wishes, corruption can be eliminated to a large extent (at least by 80% I
hope), if not by 100%.

If we see the way of money transaction in America, we find that it’s mostly
through banks. Banks play a major role in the transaction of money in daily
business. You can pay any amount of dollar ( from 1 cent to a billion dollar
) either through your personal cheques or through your credit cards ,
depending upon its credit limit. The main thing to emphasize here is that
the electronically transaction of money, makes it more and more transparent
to the regulating or law enforcing authority. On a similar pattern we need
to develop a system in our country. But the biggest hurdle is our
illiteracy, one billion strong population and half a billion population
living in poverty. But there is nothing that we can’t do. There are many
ways out of it. Here are the following steps we can firmly and slowly move
on……..

1. The move of the election commission to issue identity cards has failed
miserably. The main reason was that no database was properly maintained and
many people were able to have identity cards in different names. For example
(say) Ram Kumar was able to have identity card in the name of Ram Kumar,
Shyam Kumar as well as Mohan Kumar i.e. one man with three identity cards.
Beside that the card had other discrepancies in it like wrong name and all
that. What I suggest is that every Indian should be issued an electronic
photo identity card with a unique identity number and most importantly their
electronic database should be maintained. The unique identity number can be
used everywhere to ascertain the identity of the cardholder (similar to
Social Security Number in USA) The electronic photo identity card will have
magnetic tape on it (just like credit cards) which when scanned will give
instantly all the details of it’s holder person. These kind of electronic
identity cards are not very costly and are issued to students in many
colleges and universities in USA, Australia and other countries. This
electronic photo identity card will play a major role in checking the
corruption. It will have many benefits like maintaining law and order but
currently we will stick to its benefit in checking economic corruption.
The government will later make is mandatory that every person who opens an
account in banks will have to produce this identity card and people who
already have their accounts give their identity number to the bank. Banks
can freeze the account if the account holder fails to produce his / her
identity number to the bank. The bank can verify the authenticity of
identity card immediately by scanning through computer through the main
database. This will put a check on those people who have so many ‘benami’
accounts. Further, when the issue of electronic photo identity card is over,
the government can frame a rule so that every transaction of above Rs.
5,000/- or Rs.10,000/- in personal accounts are through cheques only and
individuals can’t withdraw cash from bank if it’s more than Rs. 10,000/-. A
person can do all his/her purchasing and payments electronically through
Debit Cards or Credit Cards. Of course problems and hardships will arise but
we will have to pay the price for cleaning up the society.
2. Biggest question arises here is how to and from where to start this
process? I feel that this process must start in phases. In the first phase
all those people should be covered who have accounts in banks and this can
be done in all the states simultaneously. This first phase needs utmost care
and cross verifications because it deals with those people who really use
and misuse their money. In the second phase those people will be covered who
are not having any bank accounts. This phase will have another kind of
difficulty because it constitutes poor and illiterate people. But
economically they are harmless and I strongly believe that their
contribution in economic crimes is nil. The whole process can be safely
stretched to 3-4 years so that cross-verifications are ,in some cases,
carried out and rectified accordingly.
3. With this kind of a system I am confident that it will bring transparency
in the transaction of money in India and people will not be able to hide
their black money. As with this kind of transparency government can see who
is earning what and where the money is coming from. This will increase the
tax-base and tax evasion will be controlled with remarkable success.
4. Also the total cost in this issuance of electronic identity card to our
one billion Indian countrymen will not be more than twenty (20) billion
rupees . I am sure that the Indian Government can happily afford to spend
that much amount of money in the span of 2-3 years. ( In case of any fund
shortage government can seek monetary help from Laloo-Rabdi, Jayalalita and
the like. They have enough money )

But the success of whole process needs some prerequisites. I will not ask
for a strong political will because our politicians do not have that, or if
at all they have any will, it is to make money by hook or by crook. So the
simplest things required are ………..
1.Expedite the process of computerization of banks in India so that banks
are connected through networks.
2. It needs to make sure that the electronic identity card is not of poor
quality and it lasts for years
3.Strong will of common people to accept the new system which will make our
country prosper, else we will be condemned to leave a corrupt, polluted,
divided, poor, illiterate and undeveloped India for the posterity.

Jai Hind

Rajeev Sinha
USA


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