Corruption, scam and issue of governance

Yenning *

Assembly building at Chingmeirong in February 2013 :: Pix - Bullu Raj

Chief Minister of Manipur, Shri Okram Ibobi Singh acknowledged and assured on the floor of the State Assembly that his Government would take up appropriate steps to deal with the phenomena of paying bribes or using contacts to get a job done in the State Secretariat. The assurance came after the Opposition in the House charged that officials from the lowest to the highest level in the Secretariat are taking money from the public without any inhibition for moving files from desk to desk.

The acknowledgement from the lips of the Chieftain of Manipur is a clear indication that corruption is a reality and in fact an open secret in Manipur. Somehow, feudal elements and practices have continued to linger on in the so-called modern-day-Manipur. Take for instance, in the feudal past, corruption circulated in a typical way, just as Niccolò Machiavelli put forth in the Dedication of his book “The Prince”, which runs as follows, “Those who try to win the favour of a prince usually come to him with things that they regard as most precious, or that they see him take most pleasure in; so we often see princes being presented with horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments that are worthy of their greatness”.

In a similar fashion, common Manipuris practiced the culture of katpa (offering) to the elites and rulers to win favour, at times even offering their daughters in marriages. In the present context, it is the elites who demand offerings to grant a favour. Thus, corruption in the present form has been freely practicing without the fear of prosecution by those occupying the ivory tower and office of the highest authority. These are the same parasites who are supposed to be responsible for citizen oriented governance or delivering good governance to the people.

In short, corruption has led to failure of governance as well as for increasing magnitude of scams in the state. Remember, siphoning off of allowances and dues, amounting to crores of rupees, from the Manipur Rifles personnel for the period 1996 to 1998 by top officials. PDS rice scam in 2013 and before and the present scams over Loktak Lake and Mapithel Dam, etc.

In fact, corruption and scam have become the defining characteristics of modern India itself. Ajit Dival, in his 2011 article “India’s Plundered Money Abroad: Can We Get It Back?”, observed that scams in government are characterized by large volumes of money and important functionaries of the government being involved. Prof. Arun Kumar, a noted authority on black money in India observes, “While the 1980s saw eight major scams, there were 26 during the period between 1991 and 1996 and there were around 150 scams during 2005-08.” The graph is co-terminus with increase in the volume of black money and the Indian money stashed abroad. The question of transparency and accountability which is the core of good governance has been subsumed by the present system of Institutional culture of corruption.

But one cannot take respite from the given affairs of India and say that compared to India or other Indian states, the magnitude of corruption and scam in Manipur is low. What one needs to be reminded here is that the culture of corruption is the real threat to governance in Manipur or elsewhere.

New breeds of technocrats and new generation of political class are increasingly relying on e-governance such as e-administration, e-citizens and e-society, etc. to curb corruption and bring about transparency and accountability (in short good governance). However, such aspirations largely remain on paper although the idea was already initiated decades ago in almost every states of India including Manipur.

It will not be an exaggeration to state that only the office or the people associated with e-governance know about e-governance. It has failed to reach out to the citizen especially those living in the rural and hill areas where basic IT infrastructure is absent. In fact, the whole process of e-governance seems to be meaningless so far. Websites of the government clearly indicates its pathetic situation.

Some of the departments do not even maintain their websites and if at all there are, they are filled with incomplete and outdated information. Instead of providing services to citizen through their websites, the government still prefers to do it manually. It only creates inconveniences to the citizens as well also creates space for corruption. It is said that the government also increased the procuring of papers and files when they are procuring the digital system such as computers, internet etc.

Failure of governance is reflected in the ever-growing grievances of the citizens over the functioning of all the sectors of government services such as healthcare, education, connectivity, electricity and government schemes, etc. There is no department that the citizens can appreciate for their service. In addition, the growing mob-violence and the panic buying during bandhs and blockades is another indication of the lack of trust in the government.

This has failed to ignite and kick start a pathway to development, in the sense that Government refuses to feel the pulse of the citizens. The crux of the problems lies in the inability of the state to adorn the real essence of development. For instance, huge construction works (read infrastructure development) which should be treated as a means to an end is treated as an end itself. Such a mentality as well as process has resulted in the mushrooming up of petty contractors.

Construction works and state service sectors have been the site of public experience of development. Moreover, the hype over Look East Policy, (now Act East Policy) has also resulted in massive increase of construction works in the state ranging from highway projects, airport expansion, and mega dams. It is difficult to understand how far, all these processes have contributed to the wellbeing of the citizens.

Important central sponsored schemes involving education, health, sanitation, and livelihood which is the main concern of the citizens are in logjam due to weak governance. The state has completely failed in propagating such schemes as the real development ingredients. Such schemes are caught in low level equilibrium trap and there is complete policy paralysis in the part of state government. The incomplete construction work of the two national highways for more than two decades is another example of lack of transparency and accountability.

Ajit Doval observed that the increase in corruption or black money is a consequence of faulty policies, inadequate laws, institutional decay and lack of transparency in governance. Almost every economic activity in India from sales of agricultural produce by farmers to procurement of defence equipments is plagued with bribery, speed money, corruption or kick backs. The malice, which is both systemic and systematic, not only affects the government and the public sector but also the private sector.

It has not only led to economic deprivation and degeneration of a country but also seriously undermines the authority of the government and the rule of law. The black money in India has been estimated by Prof. Arun Kumar with 4 percent of GDP in 1955-56 to the present 50 percent. Similarly, it can be estimated more easily for Manipur as the major corrupt practices are directly link to government activities such as recruitment, contract work for basic infrastructure and manipulation in the social security schemes.

A Special Committee to review of such activities along with income appropriateness of government official, politicians and link contractors can easily reveal the situation, its sources, process and measure to check the practices. The newly introduced Direct Benefit Transfer for the subsidy particularly of LPG, conceptualized by the UPA and implemented by the NDA is one such measure. The expectations of the citizen have increase with the digitization approach (Digital India Initiatives) of the new government which has the capability to ensure transparency and accountability which is the cornerstones of any citizen centered development approach.