Mahesh Chander Sudan
We, the people of India, are pleased to witness launch of mobile application for strengthening anti-corruption drive involving common citizens of the JKUT. To mark the occasion, Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, highlighted that a comprehensive measure for ensuring transparent, accountable and responsive governance developed to facilitate seamless flow of information about corruption and public grievances. The application would certainly enhance and strengthen the involvement of general public against corruption and help Anti-Corruption Bureau to be more effective and purpose oriented. The application is bit technical and requires Android mobile to operate that restricts its utility to some extent unless UT administration facilitates it further to the level of common people who really suffer the malaise of corruption in their day to day activities while interacting with Government/non-Government officials managing issue of free rations, sale of seeds, fertilizers and other farming inputs at village and block levels.
The efforts made by the LG administration in enhancing transparency of the system and empowering common people would effectively scare the involved corrupt officials besides raising the self-confidence of the people at large. There are yet miles to go as regards corruption at higher levels involving senior officials, politicians and other law enforcing bodies. We request LG administration to redefine the term corruption so that unauthorized use of public resources for personal use by high profile public servants (both serving and retired) and former legislators is also included and notified in clear terms for public consumption. This will educate people adequately to remain vigilant about different forms of corruption whether paid in terms of money, service or undue favors. No doubt, a well informed and vigilant citizenry would help in arresting malaise of corruption but not without active response of the government officials. Poor people encounter corrupt practices in their day to day life while availing their entitled privileges and it is structured in such a way that common people on the street are made to understand and accept it as part of the system. Entire web of corruption is managed by skilled people at the behest of corrupt government officials to trap commoners so tactfully that they hardly realize of becoming victim of their design. A robust and transparent delivery system enforced administratively with maximum machine based intervention may bring some change. A multipronged approach of overhauling the entire process of public delivery system with pointed accountability of officials in terms of timelines enforced through electronic platform is need of the hour. An example of such transformation is the computerized railway ticket booking where we could relieve passengers to some extent from middle men who used to run parallel booking counters and extract money out of helpless railway travelers. It may not be out of place to quote examples of few states where land records have been computerized to facilitate owners to manage their holdings and pay due taxes siting miles away without any worry of their property being mismanaged by revenue officials. This requires a dedicated and honest involvement of the public representatives mandated through ballot to run Government for the wellbeing of the poor people.
Pragmatically speaking, it needs concerted effort to free people from the clutches of the age’s old system that lacks transparency, honesty and empathy of the concerned government officials towards least informed people. To achieve corruption free service delivery, a free flow of information, clear rules and regulations for easy understanding of the masses, flawless customized electronic platforms with single window delivery system to reduce multipoint human intervention may be encouraged in government offices. We may arrest corruption to some extent in public service delivery system but may not be able to check unauthorized willful use of public resources by high profile government officials, heavy weight political leaders who bulldoze system and exploit public property unauthorized. They not only disrespect law of land but manipulate officials for extending tacit approval to continue illegal occupancy infinitely. What troubles most common men on street is the apparent helplessness of the administration in safeguarding public premises from these high profile offenders. We wait helplessly for the day when senior former public representatives of Ministerial status and leaders heading main stream political entities would oblige LG and his administration by vacating these affected premises and pay dues towards state exchequer and avoid ultimate administrative eviction forcefully.
It is therefore an earnest public plea made to Lieutenant Governor and his administration to advise affected occupants to abide by the rules and regulation for honoring the mandate of the people and help UT administration to set an example of zero tolerance towards corruption and strengthen them to arrest erosion of public faith in the larger interest of the state.
The author is Wg Cdr (Retd)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
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