Saturday, June 2, 2012

My take on containing corruption - 3 June 2012


The stalemate in governance continues at the center and if we want to get out of the quagmire then no magic wand but best practices, like facilitating business and industry is the need of the hour.

In this regard, Swami's take is very apt and timely:

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/entry/wanted-a-new-social-contract-between-business-and-politics

Our Babu's are not known for their efficiency and unless we have firm turn-around times, for issuing  certificates, licenses and permits, then these are not issued. What is more, after setting turn around times the time limits should be progressively reduced to bring in efficiency.

Our high rate of unemployment could actually be a boon here. For any and every license to be issued there should be a turnaround time for the government officials and then the pending application should automatically go to another bucket, where private accredited agencies would do the processing; again within a stiffer deadline. For this to happen the processes are to be documented and then seamless digital license approval processes should be instituted.

As courier agencies can track the position/ stage of the consignments, the applicants for various licenses should also be able to track the status of their application from their offices. Any additional compliances required should be intimated to them on-line and provision should be made for most of those compliance to be made without a visit to any office.

When the government officials fail to do something and hence that is passed over to the private agency then their performance should be compared to that of the private players and where ever necessary the stick should be welded.

The performance of the private agencies should be monitored and evaluated against  pre-fixed parameters and the focus of combating inefficiency / corruption should shift to this leg; for now there would be little corruption in the government agencies where private parties are attached at the backend.

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