COMBATING CORRUPTION-TECHNOLOGY AS AN ENABLER

Corruption is a type of strategic action, involving two or more people who

undertake an exchange relation by the way of successful transfer of money or
power which sidesteps legality or morality to regulate the relation which
ultimately leads to devaluation of integrity, virtue or moral principle, reduce
credibility and unstabilizes the economy.
Being a responsible citizen we cannot allow our value, morality, integrity to be
degraded. Technology is a just like a lever (a simple machine used for lifting
heavy eight with less effort) which can helps us in uprooting the corruption
efficiently.

In 2012, India has been ranked 94
th
out of 176 countries in Transparency
international (a Germany based non-governmental organization that monitors
and publicizes corporate and political corruption in international
development) corruption perception index, tied with Benin, Columbia,
Dijibouti, Greece, Moldova, Mongolia and Senegal. As we can see from the
survey of Transparency International, we have a lot to do for improving our
position and in this task technology is our high speed supersonic Missile. In
February 2011, US secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighted that the
Internet has become the Public space of the 21
th
century THE WORLD
TOWN SQUARE. The role of Technology especially the internet is very
important to bring about a change in the mindset of the masses. As the
understanding of the reduction of corruption is crucial for the prosperity and
growth of a country like India, access to information pertaining to government
programmes and policies through the internet becomes very significant.

The role of Technology in reducing corruption enables the masses as well as
policy makers to develop practically implementable solutions, which can
become a reference point for formulating an appropriate policy framework.
The internet had a big impact on the movement against corruption by making
the formulation accessible on corruption generated threats, arbitrary changes
in government policies and demands for bribes by government babus widely
and easily accessible. Internet and social networking sites like Facebook and
Twitter are powerful weapons that can curb the menace of corruption and
lead to greater transparency in public life by publicizing India situation vis--
vis economical and governance best practices followed throughout world,
highlighting ongoing corruption cases and applying pressure on corrupt
Organizations and Individuals. The free distribution and wide reach of the
Internet and social media channels is critical in the fight to reduce corruption
and renew the social fabric. This can give rise to a virtuous cycle of
transparent policy making, clean government and faster economic growth.
We can acknowledge the tremendous power of technology from the fact that
an anti-corruption civic organization INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION came
to fore front in 2012 despite being formed earlier (affiliated to the Hindustan
Republican Association which was founded on 3 October, 1924 at Kanpur).
The credit for the popularization can be given to technology. The tremendous
media attention and active appeal on website i.e. internet gathered so much
attention, creating awareness against corruption that people not only from
India, but from all over the world came forward to join this movement against
corruption.

The major areas of concern are politics and bureaucracy, land and property-
where officials steal state property, service sector like education, banking,
communication, and healthcare are also under trap of corruption.
A study conducted between 2014 and 2015 founds that Indias driver
licensing procedure was a hugely distorted bureaucratic process and allows
drivers to be licensed despite their low driving ability through promoting the
wage of agents. Individuals with high willingness to pay make a significant
payment above the official fee and most of these extra payments are made to
agents, who act as an intermediary between bureaucrats and applicants. The
average licensee paid Rs.1080.00 approximately 2.5 times the official fee of
Rs.450.00 in order to obtain a license. On average, those who hired agents had
a lower driving ability, with agents helping unqualified drivers obtain licenses
and bypass the legally required driving Examination. Among the Surveyed
individual approximately 60% of the license holders did not take the licensing
exam and 54% of those license holders failed on independent driving test. But
with the advent of technology in the transport offices this very corruption has
been reduced to a great extent because now a days an applicant has to visit
the transport office for submission of his application Coz it requires his finger
to be scanned, digital photograph to be captured etc. To some extent, we can
say that the use of technology has restricted agents and has reduced
corruption.
Not only in case of transport offices, but also in case of service sector like
banking, modules for online Loan processing, real time fund transfer,
computerized core environment has reduced the scope for agents and has
provided less space for discretionary power of officials. Now a days there are
various accounting software for various employee benefits like medical
expenses, LTC, TA/DA etc, built in such a manner that the computer system
generates Exception report and gives alert wherever they are significant
deviations from certain benchmarks and norms. Similarly the same
accounting software system can make inter unit/inter location comparison of
expenditure on these items.
Technology being a boon for fighting against corruption has very drastic
results within small times we have various laws for helping us on fight against
corruption, which were less acknowledged earlier and were lying in their
respective files but with the use of technology i.e. providing these knowledge
on website, social media, television has been proved as a mind-changing setup
for people. Now they are more aware about the laws available for combating
corruption. Some of these laws are
1. Right to Information Act
2. Right to Public services legislation
3. Indian Penal Code,1860
4. Prosecution section of income tax Act 1961
5. The benami Transaction(Prohibition) Act,1988 to prohibit benami
transaction
6. Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002
7. Lokpal and Lokayauktas Act,2013
8. Whistle Blower Protection Act,2011
Since a growing number of countries has thought of using technology as an
anti-corruption tool, it is vital that we in India also put in place a framework of
public debate and interaction that can positively influences the formulation
and delivery of government policies, programs and projects. In India, while
internet penetration is on the rise, a lot of work still remains to be done to
improve the quality of bandwidth and the availability of Internet access, as
widely and easily as Television.
With the increasing penetration of mobile phones and availability of high-
speed data services via 3G/4G networks ICT innovations like GOVERNMENT
ON YOUR SIM CARD can help to easily and cheaply deliver relevant
information and government services to the remotest corner of the country.
This will help India to become a democracy in its true sense, where every
citizen has a right to equal opportunity to health, happiness and prosperity
through greater adoption on technology driven solutions, India can set a new
benchmarks of value convergence in which corruption in public life is
universally disfavored.



BY:
MOHIT ANAND
ASSISTANT MANAGER
UCO BANK, MISSION CHARIALI BRANCH(3117)
PFM NO.-55969