tribuneindia...Mailbag

A LARGE number of articles and letters have appeared in The Tribune regarding the economic crisis in Punjab. The writers have focused largely on issues such as subsidies, need to increase taxes, etc.

However, the main issue, corruption, both at the ministerial and officer levels and its highly adverse impact on the effectiveness of a government has been largely ignored. The lifestyle of bureaucrats, other state government officials and ministers, their wealth accumulation and the passive acceptance of our society of all this have not been discussed.

Corruption affects our society adversely in many ways. The process of asset creation by the government (buildings infrastructure projects etc will certainly suffer if corruption is there by way of higher costs or low-grade materials used. Similarly, the maintenance of assets would also suffer.

The major area of concern is that unmitigated corruption affects adversely the effectiveness and efficiency of any system of government.

Moral corruption (buying votes by ill-advised moves of subsidies, etc) is also an issue which ultimately impacts society economically, something the people of Punjab are yet to fully comprehend.

Unmitigated corruption has a social price also; as the economy flounders, social pressures increase and find outlets in addiction, crime, vulgar display of wealth, law and order break-down, etc.

Lest we should forget, this greed for wealth accumulation is now very much visible among officials, who openly display fancy houses, cars, expensive consumer goods, etc. Nobody questions the net savings required over a period of time to acquire such assets and wealth, though on the face of it the framework has been created for vigilance with an army of officials manning the positions. In addition, catching the small fry befools no one as corruption is best tackled by a drive beginning at the top.

May I add here that this should also include a study of automatic promotions without relating to performance, the number of vehicles per senior officer and other costs expended on maintaining a feudal lifestyle. What puzzles and pains me is our society’s passive acceptance of the unbridled arrogance of officials, instead of questioning its place in a democracy, specially when the much-needed performance factor — the actual result — is missing. The cost to society of a massive bureaucratic structure has to be analysed vis-a-vis its performance and the results achieved.

Punjab’s economy cannot be improved by issuing press notes on various subjects such as the demand for aid from the Centre, the announcement austerity measures—which are never implemented — and cutting down perks at the lowest official level only. The drive has to start at the top and has to have a strong social sanction, cutting across all segments of society.

Next millennium

This has reference to Mr N. Khosla’s letter published on November 11. He is absolutely right in saying that the next millennium will begin on 1.1.2001.

Write-ups keep on appearing in the media suggesting that the present millennium will end on 31-12-1999, that the count down for the new one has begun, that so and so festival is the last in this millennium, etc. This is creating confusion in the minds of the people. The media itself can now help in clearing it.

To my mind, the confusion about the date of commencement of the new millennium has, perhaps, arisen because of another important computer-related problem, Y2K, which begins at 0001 hour on 1-1-2000, though the two are totally unrelated.

Wg Cdr C. L. SEHGAL (retd)
Jalandhar

The October 16 anti-corruption trumpet by the Prime Minister is most welcome. Corruption is the fountain of all evils in society.

He expressed his resolve to apply the principle of zero tolerance in the country’s fight against terrorism and corruption. It will be better if the first fight is against corruption, as sometime it breeds terrorism too. His predecessors utterly failed on this front, and some of them indulged in making the hay while the sun shines.

Corruption is a cancerous disease and any delay in its treatment can destabilise the nation.

People also appreciate Mr Vajpayee’s announcement to check corruption from the top, because “as is the king so are the subjects”. No doubt, eradicating corruption is a difficult task, but it will amount to killing all birds with one stone.

	M A I L B A G	Wednesday, November 24, 1999
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