Enough has been said and written about India's potential. Corruption is not the creation of the media as stated by our Prime Minister. Corruption exists in every form and has moved from the realm of ‘need-based' to ‘greed-based'. We will be doing gross injustice to our future generations if the cleansing efforts are not started immediately.

Not a day goes by without the public or the businessmen being subject to some degree of harassment for the sake of corruption by some officials who bring down the reputation of the Department in the process. Similarly, not a day goes by without some citizen or businessmen violating a regulation or a requirement with the firm belief that he would get away through corruption. These practices affect the country and cause great pain both to the honest officials and the honest citizens. A mind-set change is required. Such change of character cannot be achieved overnight, but the following measures could help.

Wherever discretionary powers are available to any administering authority, there is a window for corruption. Wherever approvals are contemplated, to the extent possible they must be made online and systems-driven to avoid any interaction. Every approval mechanism must be governed by specific time-limits stipulated in the legislation. Failure to grant or reject within those time-limits should result in deemed approval with a departmental enquiry as to why there was delay. The application process and the Annexures must be transparent and known to all through the Web site of the Department.

Rewarding honesty meaningfully

Honest officials within any Department should be identified and promoted as heads of the Department or made as part of the Vigilance Committee of that Department. Increased consumerism is also one of the reasons for corruption since the child who watches the products on television is likely to demand the same from the poor parent. Therefore, salaries of Government Officials should also be increased with strict control to ensure that corruption results in severe consequences. Driving test should be carried out only under camera in order to ensure that there is a proper licensing regime to prevent issue of duplicate licences and other associated practices.

Registration of Documents should be in dematerialised format so that the land-related frauds are eliminated. Stamp Duty can be reduced to 2 per cent so that there is no enthusiasm for undervaluation of property and further this would also ensure that realistic values are reflected in the system.

Circumvention of tender process must be strictly dealt with and there can be a specific vigilance committee comprising reputed citizens to overview every tender process of significant magnitude.

All expenses in connection with election must be met only through banking channels so that the limit on expenses mandated through legislation is adhered to. Enforcement of the legislation on expenses pertaining to election must be strict. The thousand rupee note (Rs 1000) should be withdrawn from circulation with a clear sunset date. Alternatively, a new colour should be used or plastic notes should be introduced into the system for Rs 1,000 with a sunset date for the old colour. This will ensure that unaccounted tainted cash is nothing but paper. The system would not allow conversion into lower denomination since nobody would want to be in possession of such notes. By specifying a date, banks can also collect the data on the persons bringing the notes for exchange.