Will you laugh or weep when a politician accused of scam of hundreds of millions of rupees says that he shall quit the politics if found guilty of corruption charges? One can imagine how great is the politician? He is being charged of corruption charges of few  millions but it would be irreparable loss to country if he quits the politics. It is another matter that people will be cursing themselves for electing such a corrupt politician.

India remained slave for more than two hundred years. Thousands of people lost their life in their fight for independence. Ultimately India got independence and people took a sigh of relief but this has to be short lived. After Independence, people forgot the sacrifices of martyrs and burnt of slavery and got indulged in the politics of carear building. In last fifty years, India has progressed in several fields as well as on population front (negative terms) but people are still dying due to hunger though India has surplus stocks of food grains, and plenty of natural resources. I sometime wonder why people suffer due to hunger, die due to diseases, and fight with each other on this or that pretext . I get one answer that people at top label are responsible for it. We have lot of examples when our society have to face the consequences of doings of these political leaders. Whenever these leaders felt that there survival was at risk they took advantage of politics and highlighted the issues that are not of much conern to general public like J&K, reservations to SC/ST/OBC, issues of domiciles etc. Political leaders or groups always try to devide society in castes, regions, religions and even states to achieve their short term goals. I believe that corruption can never prevail without support of people at the top. Who are these people who protect corruption, who encourage corrupt people to go ahead without fear? All of us are well aware of these people. They are among us. These are our representative. We elect them; we send them to legislative assemblies or parliament. I do not mean that all people at the top positions are corrupt. Believe it, still a small percentage (say <10%) of top officials are honest. However, I am not so sure about our political leaders. Even if few are there, caucuses surrounding them do not give them time or opportunity to act honestly. All models of reforms or codes have failed to improve these people. Society has become so helpless or say is divided badly in castes, religions, regions that people have no time or guts to consider corruption as a menace. Corruption has become so deep rooted in our society that it has become part of our life or in other better terms our life style. If we consider prevailing corruption in the country, corruption is present in our system at several levels. We can broadly divide corruption at different levels.

1. Corruption present in public life: Political leaders, their agents, relatives etc

2. Corruption at administrative levels: Heads of the government departments

3. Corruption at middle levels: Sectional Heads

4. Corruption at lower levels: Clerical staff, technical staff

As per a survey of TII – CMS Study 2005, the monetary value of petty corruption in 11 departments was estimated at Rs 21,068 crores and department statistics is given below.

Departments/Services Monetary value (Crores) % of total

Schools (Sr secondary) 4137 9.6

Police (Crime/Traffic) 3899 18.5

Land Administration 3126 14.8

Judiciary 2630 12.5

Electricity (Consumers) 2169 10.3

Govt. Hospitals 2017 9.6

RFI (Farmers) 1543 7.3

Municipal Services 550 2.6

Income Tax (Individual Assesses) 496 2.4

PDS (Ration card/supplies) 358 1.7

Water Supply 143 0.7

Total 21068 100

Source: TII – CMS Study 2005

This shows that about Rs 21068 Crores are pocketed by these department’s officials as bribe money.Again in a recent survey in 2007, anti-corruption watch dog transparency international summarized that poor families are hit hardest by demands for bribes. Most serious fact that emerged from this survey indicates that health, education, judiciary and police departments are where demand for bribes is a serious concern. The most sad fact is that people are asked to pay bribe for essential services. Another implication of this corruption is that a big amount is lost by the government in exchange of this bribe money that could have gone to government coffers. Most adverse effect of this corruption is seen on the work efficiency. These government officials keep files pending and work is delayed and it affects the progress of country. These monetary estimates do not cover commissions taken behind the scene by top officials and political machinery for awarding tenders etc. One can judge from these facts that monetary value of petty corruption is like a drop of water in a ocean.

People know several scams which involved thousands of crores of rupees in each scam. As told earlier, no formula works here to root out the corruption at higher levels as evident from several examples. Several cases are pending against political leaders but nothing happens to these people. Several leaders are enjoying ministerial posts though charge sheets have been submitted against them by the investigating agencies. This clearly illustrates that until and unless there is a public movement against them, they are not going to improve.

Only ray of hope to introduce technology in place of manual handling of matters. One best example is of railways. Earlier seat reservation work was being done by railway staff manually but nowadays computerization has eliminated all human biasness. Several services like land record maintenance; public distribution system, connection release etc. need use of technology for better functioning. Classic example of corruption: Land tax per unit deposited by a land owner is Rs 1.0 to 2.0 per annum but one has to pay a bribe of Rs 200-300 to deposit Rs 2.0 in government A/C. Likewise you have to fight a long battle to deposit your telephone or electricity bills that could be easily done by dropping checks through post or through online resources but there is no interest in government circles to do so as this will eliminate corruption. Government gives lot of subsidy on kerosene so that it can be provided at a cheaper rate to poor people but it is sold at eight or nine times more price to the public. Our petroleum minister got a brilliant idea and announced that kerosene will be sold in pouches. I was shocked to hear this if it has been done how black marketers or hoarders will earn extra money from this. But this was not to happen and never happened.

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