Figure 8.2 Crime, corruption and economic growth

Table 8.6 Complaints received and disposed of during 2008

Complaints Nos. Action taken

No. of complaints received and B/F 10,330 Anonymous/Pseudonymous 673 Filed Vague/Unverifiable 2,343 Filed Non-vigilance/officials not under 6,025 For necessary action to Orgns./Depts. CVC jurisdiction Verifiable 1,147 Sent for investigation to CVO/CBI Total disposed of 10,188 Pendency 142

C

KERALA GUJARAT PUNJAB WB BIHAR

Total Crime (Crime in India 2007) Corruption Composite Index (III-CMS Study 2005) Per Capital SDP (Economic Survey GOI-2006/07 Table 1.8)

Figure 8.2 Crime, corruption and economic growth

cases in trial were disposed of by the courts. Out of these disposed of cases 492 which is 66.13% of total cases ended in conviction. 10. The fight against corruption has been declared a high priority by

Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh. In the last G20 Summit in

April, Dr. Singh urged the G20 leaders to bring tax havens and noncooperating jurisdiction under close scrutiny as part of implementing tighter global financial revelations. It may be mentioned that recent estimates of such Indian money outside India reached INR 7.5 million crore. Black money circulating inside India appears to be no less in quantity than its outside component. Corruption continues to be widespread in the country. India is ranked 85 out of 179 countries in

Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

There have been many instances of political and bureaucratic corruption, public fund embezzlement, fraudulent procurement practices and judicial corruption. The sectors most affected are public procurement, tax and customs administration, infrastructure, public utilities and the police. 11. The economy in India was under socialist-inspired policies for an entire generation from the 1950s until the 1980s, and was subject to extensive regulation, protectionism, and public ownership. Since 1991, economic liberalization in India has reduced red tape and bureaucracy, supported the transition towards a market economy with record growth rates of 9.2 % in 2007. However, its growth has been uneven across social and economic groups, with sections of society experiencing some of the highest levels of poverty in the world. Endemic corruption contributes to uneven distribution of wealth. The cost of corruption, perceptible in public sector inefficiencies and inadequate infrastructure, is undermining efforts to reduce poverty. According to the Global Corruption

Barometer 2007, petty corruption is common practice in India with 25% of the respondents admitted paying bribes to obtain basic services.

India is also perceived to export corruption outside its border. A study made by Diane Mak of TI, in 2006 ranked India at the bottom of the

Bribe Payers Index (BPI) table out of 30 countries selected for study.

This indicates that Indian firms are perceived by business people as very likely to engage in bribery when doing business abroad. 12. Long procedural delay in the finalization of Court cases, as mentioned earlier, is a big failure to reduce corruption. A case under PC Act usually takes 10 to 15 years to be finalized and even the same judgment and all the interlocutory orders can be challenged in higher courts causing further delay. As mentioned in Crime in India, 2007, only

13% of the cases pending trial under various section of IPC were disposed of during the year, and that most of these disposed of cases were old cases. A survey of CBI cases in two States indicates that only 4% of the public servants booked by CBI were in jail. It must be understood that in the fight against corruption CERTAINTY is more important than the ENORMITY of Punishment. 13. India’s performance on the 2007 Global Integrity Index indicates a huge gap between anti-corruption policies and practice. Although the legal and institutional frameworks against corruption are well developed, law enforcement, however, remains very weak, suffering a lack of political will to address the challenges of corruption. Shri Pratyush

Sinha, the Central Vigilance Commissioner whom we had interviewed in the course of our project, felt that the weakest points in India’s anticorruption drive are:

1) It is perceived that fighting corruption is not the job of the concerned departments which completely abdicate their responsibility. 2) Although there are good institutions like CVC to fight corrupt practices of Ministers and Bureaucrats, there is no specific institution to tackle political corruption. The corrupt politicians in turn influence the corrupt civil servants. 3) Corruption has ceased to be an issue in the society. Earning more money means earning more respect. The young generation is likely to be unaware of the issue of the corruption.

14. The Central Vigilance Commission is the Nodal Agency in India to take action against corrupt public servants. However, from the following Charts (Figures 8.3–8.6), it may be seen that the number of cases received in the Commission has been decreasing since 2004 and the number of penalties imposed is also decreasing since 2004. The number of penalty imposed to number of cases received (in %) was maximum in 2004 (73.4%) and thereafter remained close to 50–55%. The number of cases disposed of by the Commission also decreased since 2003 as may be seen in Figure 8.4. The senior officials in the Commission could not give any satisfactory reason for