Corruption costs India Rs 2.5 lakh cr, says Prahalad
BS Reporter / Mumbai Jan 15, 2010, 00:43 IST
The cost of corruption to the country could exceed Rs 250,000 crore, management guru C K Prahalad said today.
Delivering the Seventh Nani A Palkhivala Memorial Lecture here, he highlighted the funding of election campaigns by politicians and the return they try to achieve after they win as one of the basic reasons for corruption in the country.
The 2009 Lok Sabha elections are reported to have cost the country Rs 10,000 crore. Of this, Rs 1,300 crore was spent by the Election Commission and Rs 700 crore by the Centre and state governments. The remaining Rs 8,000 crore were spent by political parties and individual candidates.
If the cost of state elections were also covered, this could easily exceed Rs 25,000 crore, he said.
“I cannot but assume that private funding of elections of this magnitude is predicted on making an appropriate return,” said . “Given the risky nature of the investments in elections, politicians as venture capitalists, we can assume, will not settle for less than a 10n-fold return,” he pointed out.
Chalking out a road map for the country, he called for reducing the irregularity of information, reduce the number of points of interpretation of laws and asked for an increase in accountability.
He called the unique identification programme of the government as the building block of social justice and asked to focus on massive education so that inequality of opportunity is eradicated.
“India is at an interesting crossroad,” said Prahalad. “It must choose. The path to progress needs significant innovations and a discarding of the old and acceptance of the new,” he added.
He said the crisis in India is one of leadership. “There is no one who is willing to articulate a view of India and Indianness with clarity and force so that the country can come together and make the sacrifices needed to build a new India that the framers of the Constitution imagined,” he said.
The Indian politicians do get & spend loads of money on election. But one should also turn an eye on the bussiness men/ordinary people who fund them & not for nothing.Its a chain system where the corruption in scaterred through out our society. And finally it's a symbiosis since the people who fund them in return look for 'security'& or contacts & sources. In simple word every body is a part of it!
I recalled the recent ad of Jaago Re when I read the article in today's newspaper ?Corruption is now considered as one of the world's greatest challenges today'. The World Bank has stated that "bribery has become a $1 trillion industry." That number would hardly be surprising to many as in our daily lives we have to bribe pretty much everyone from top to bottom to get your work done. But the biggest learning is that by giving bribes, we are only encouraging more of it! This will only end when we stop believing that bribing is the only way to get work done. Maybe we should all pull our pants down in front of bribe takers like the character in Munnabhai who does that to get his pension! Or maybe do something a little less drastic, but as effective, and join hands with an NGO that helps fight corruption. I found such an NGO on jaagore.com and now plan to volunteer my time and skills as a copywriter with them.
Only way out would be change in currency system. Existing huge reserves of black money and fake currency needs to be wiped off for a sustainable development culture.
Interesting guesstimate of Corruption in India. But the world's top most management guru should come up with a more detailed treatise on how to tackle the intractable problem of Corruption in India.
Sanjay Uvach
Corruption in India
We are going along the expected line, and our politicians have enormously succeeded in making a mockery of our law, rules and regulations. They make the law and break them too, adept at preaching what they do not practise
Insipid and weak leadership except during Indira Gandhi's time is the curse of this nation.Current incumbent is spineless and a gentleman which does not help too much.Interestingly our billionnaire businessmen do not seems to care too much to reshape the destiny and strengthen leadership of our nation.
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