Dr Daleep Pandita
As a routine obligation, this year also the offices of Central, State Governments and public sector organizations are celebrating vigilance awareness week, that is likely to be extended for a fortnight period, but with little impact at ground level. It has become a short period symbolic effort limited to the extent of keeping up the official tradition with little concern about its final outcome. As a matter of awareness, it is important to understand the genesis of corruption, before we take it head on to tackle this social menace, more specifically rather than holistically. Normally corruption in our society is perceived as financial fraud or economic crime. Actually corruption is a broader term having wide ambit and different ramifications. It has various types ranging from intellectual corruption, to moral corruption, to social corruption, to religious corruption, to ethnic corruption, to physical corruption, to sexual corruption and very many other types. Basically corruption exists either by need or by greed. Both these modes are directly related to the mindset of an individual. With the passage of time, these traits domiate by over shadowing the moral values of a person, which otherwise develop during its upbringing. We primarily adopt two ways in dealing with this social evil. One method is preventive, that create much needed awareness so as follow thumb rule of ” prevention is better than cure “. It not only creates fear in the mind of corrupt due to horrible consequences of corruption but also builds morale against unfair and illegal practices that ultimately lead to self satisfaction of a person. All actions under this exercise create deterrent effect in the mind of a common man that triggers sense of discipline and responsibility in a person. This approach is purely educative, informative and propulsive in nature.
The other method is punitive, that provides punishment after committing the crime or acts of commission or omission. It is reformative in nature that corrects human aberrations and serves lesson for others. But punitive vigilance can be used as a tool for victimization and vindication. So in practice, it is less encouraged to preventive vigilance as chances of its misuse are comparatively more that punitive vigilance. Prevention of corruption by creating sustained public awareness is an exercise where not only government is involved but people en mass need to play their responsible role for its great success. Zero tolerance towards corruption is the need of hour, which must be fully activated at all levels. Government need to be serious in its commitment towards implementation of anti corruption measures by regularly sensitizing their employees continuously throughout the year. Departments associated with vigilance must be equipped with complete infrastructure and given well trained honest manpower who are dedicated towards the cause. Adequate judicial powers rather than empowering them with vast administrative jurisdiction need to be ensured . They should be accountable and result oriented, so that people have faith and confidence in such institutions. At the same time, there is also need to have proper check and balance on their functioning, so as not to misuse such agencies for settling personal scores and taking political vendetta. Such credible caretakers must not succumb to undue tactical pressure of their governors for petty benefits for goofing up the facts that encourage law breakers. Voluntary citizens and Non governmental organisations, who perform with limited resources and strive for creating awareness against corruption, need to be encouraged. Sufficient examples of discouraging such front runners have been seen in the past. It not only reflects unexpected attitude of authorities but intern send the message of inefficient governance to the society.
Conclusively, together with the government, we need to change our mindset and feel consciously responsible, by creating much needed vigilance awareness to fight against this social malignancy, in order to rebuild New India. Compromising with our moral and ethical values by succumbing to this evil, for our petty gains, in turn destroy us and our nation, which we can not afford at any cost.
(The author is Senior Divisional Manager with Government of India PSU at Jammu )
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel