India’s Suffocating Bureaucracy and Corruption

- A Major Hurdle in Economic Development

31 states, 1618 languages, 6400castes, 6religion, 6ethnic groups,
29major festivals………….and one country………that makes everyone feel proud to
be an Indian.
India, Bharat, Hindustan, is one of the oldest civilizations in the world,
spanning a period of more than 4000 years, and witnessing the fusion of several
customs and traditions. In India there are about 5600 dailies, 15000 weeklies and
20,000 periodicals are circulated in 21 languages with a combined circulation of 142
million.
India has a vibrant private space-
100 Indian Companies have market cap of US$ 1 billion, 1000 Indian Companies
have received foreign institutional investment, and 125 Fortune 500 companies have
R&D bases in India.
But corrupted bureaucracy, poor governance is the problem. Ironically,
we used to have almost of world class institutions, fair policies & practices,
politicians, but our problem was growth. Now we have growth, but our bureaucracy,
institutions are failing.
Bureaucracy is the collective organizational structure, procedures,
protocols, and set of regulations to manage activities. It is represented by standardized
procedure that guides the execution of most of the processes.
Indian Bureaucracy is the administrative arm of the Government.
Technically a branch of the executive but legislature also has some control over its
functioning. In the Indian democracy setup, its responsibility is to turn legislation into
policies. It has a wide range of duties, from formulating and planning difficult
technical issues to handing out welfare checks, delivering the mail, distribution etc.
Thus the government executives, public servant, politicians, judiciary
institutions etc are the part of bureaucracy.
This Indian bureaucracy is itself is a major hurdle in India’s track of becoming
a superpower. According to a report by International Finance Corporation (IFC), the
investment arm of the World Bank, India has the "most bureaucratic red tape" in the
South Asian region. "It scores worst in time to register a business (89 days), difficulty
of firing a worker (90 out of 100), delay in registering property (67 days), time for
closing a business (10 years)," says the IFC's report "Doing Business in South Asia
2005-06”.(slide-)

Further, report says that India ranks second in the region for procedures and time
required to enforce a contract. It takes three months to open a business in Mumbai.
Two of the months are spent on obtaining a personal account number from the
income-tax department.

There have been loss of $50 billion due to tax evasion; $10 billion due to delay in
projects to the government due to bureaucratic red tape.E.g
Corrupted, red tape bureaucracy & politics can be harmful to the Indian
economy in the long run.
Corruption &/in Bureaucratic practices:
 In India, the web of corruption probably has a bureaucratic core. A vast
bureaucracy is responsible for individual and institutionalized corruption. Out of every
rupee spent by the government for development, less than a tenth of the amount
actually reaches the beneficiary.
Transparency International a global watchdog body, ranked India at a 85th in
a 128 country list in its Corruption Perception Index, in 2008. A 2009 survey of the
leading economies of Asia, revealed Indian bureaucracy to be not just least efficient
out of Asian countries like Singapore, Japan, China; further it was also found that
working with the India's civil servants was a "slow and painful" process.(slide-nation
&rank)

List of countries by Corruption Perceptions Index

A higher score means less (perceived) corruption.
This list is published w.r.t corruption among public officials and politicians".The
organization defines corruption as "the abuse of public office for private gain".
Individual has to strive hard to get a electricity or water connection, clearance of a
residential plan, lodging a report with the police etc. Officials often steal state
property. In Bihar, more than 80% of the subsidized food aid to poor is stolen.
Political system, police, judiciary system etc are directly and indirectly
associated with the bureaucracy.
A judiciary system which was till now clean, the termite of corruption
is now eating this system also. Chief justice of India, member of parliament have
made recommendation 4 removal of Karnataka high court judge who is said to have
misused his power of chair but he is not yet prosecuted .The corruption in judiciary
system is also attributed to no. of pending cases, shortages of judges and complex
procedures.
The cancer of corruption is spreading like wildfire. The Indian politics &
the system is a root cause of all the maladies.

The list of scams involving public servants, politicians is an unending one.

Our police system is also a corrupt one. A recent survey suggests police
officials across the country earn more than $400 million through bribes offered by
truck drivers. Many reports, commissions recommended the modernization of police
force but bz of our corrupt brtic practice it is yet under the review process.(slide)
Because of such red tape ,corrupted bureaucracy
"It is impossible for a common man to own a roof, provide good education to his
children and hope for a peaceful retirement in India using normal and honest
means.” Bz of this there is poverty, illiteracy, terrorism, unequal distribution of
income. For this,
• The nexus of bureaucracy with the political corruption, lack of
accountability and low regulatory controls, rigidity of bureaucracy could be
various reasons behind existence of corrupt practices within the Indian
bureaucratic system. Dismantling the bureaucracy would be the first step in
fixing the problem of corruption in India, followed by reduction of the
public sector.
 • Large no of laws means more the corruption and more delayed the process
and hence there should be simplification in the legislation. Hence there
would not be delay in registration, starting a venture and other similar type
of processes.
• There should be many technocrats/specialist to manage and regulate the
bureaucracy, psu’s than officers without more intervention from the
government.
• In India the procedure to prosecute any high level government officials,
judges of judiciary system is very much complicated and time consuming.
Till today no or very less judges who said to have misused their power have
been prosecuted bz of complex process. There should be reform in the
legislation for such act.
• There should be lenient labour regulations, reform in lagging states.
• There should be the minimum level of hierarchy in the governing system
which will lead to faster results and least corruption.
• Separate courts to deal with the matter of corruption and expediately give
the judgement of the same and that should be time bound.

So at the end I would like to sum up ma presentation with the conclusion that, it’s a
time to say good bye to the suffocating, inefficient, corrupted bureaucracy if India
wants to lead the league of most powerful countries in the world.
Parliamentary form of Government

100 maise 99 bayieman