During the mid-1970s, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi dismissed criticism about the levels of corruption with an airy ''Corruption is a global phenomenon'', people were shocked.Not any more. Things have come a long way from 1964 when Punjab chief minister Pratap Singh Kairon was forced to resign following charges of nepotism. Or even the 1989 elections which Rajiv Gandhi lost because of the Bofors scandal.

Corruption in India is inevitable, given the demand-supply gaps, a highly regulated economic system,and lack of transparency.

Anti-corruption legislation dates back to 1946 when the Delhi Special Police Act was passed. A year later came the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Central Vigilance Commission was set up in 1964 as an advisory body. It got constitutional status in 1998. However, there have been four futile attempts to enact a legislation to set up a Lokpal (ombudsman) at the Centre. There been much success in attempts to improve transparency in government, barring Rajasthan, the only state to have passed a Right to Information Act. n
-Seetha

Inspector Raj: The Great Survivor

The licence-quota raj may be over but the inspector raj still reigns supreme. Industry may have been delicensed in 1991 but is still highly regulated. Each industrial unit is visited by between 40 and 60 inspectors in the course of a month. The following is an illustrative, and not an exhaustive, list of inspectors. There may be several more inspectors depending on the kind of manufacturing activity. As a result, small and medium enterprises are forced to shell out bribes to these officers. Or else face harassment.

-Seetha

Experiments In E-Governance

To the people they serve, e-governance projects have helped eliminate the great Indian wait. All over India it is common for villagers to travel to faraway government offices at district headquarters to submit applications, meet officials, and obtain copies of public records. Once at the government office, the official, record, or information is hard to find, often forcing repeated visits, harassment and additional expense, not just because of another trip but the inevitable corruption involved in handing over records. The government clerk or officer-in-charge, like the all-powerful Block Development Officer works from yellowing stacks of carelessly stacked files and most importantly, has a monopoly over the information and records. All this has led to a horrendous lack of transparency and inefficiency in the world's largest democracy. But it doesn't have to be that way. Here are three initiatives that show how:

GYANDOOT. Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh.
Winner of an international award, Gyandoot is a Rs 26-lakh intranet, conceptualised and implemented in just 51 days. Dhar is part of the soyabean and cotton belt and handles transactions worth over Rs 400 crore a year. Gyandoot serves as a government-to-citizen e-commerce platform for five lakh people. It connects the district headquarters to 21 multimedia kiosks or rural cyber cafes, called soochnalayas. Each soochnalaya serves between 20 to 30 villages, which is between 20,000-30,000 people.

The services available include: daily commodity marketing information including prices and volumes; copies of land records, bank loan forms and maps; online registration of applications for income, domicile and other certificates-e-mails in Hindi are sent through the soochnalaya when the certificate is ready; and redressal of grievances. An e-mail reply is assured within seven days. The project is to be replicated in all 44 districts by mid 2002.
-Ashutosh Sinha

TWIN CITIES NETWORK SERVICES. Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
Launched in 2000, the project provides a one-stop online shop for 18 services, from issuing licences to paying property tax. It has 19 centres citywide. Now renamed E-seva, Twin Cities Intelligent Network Services will be extended to other parts of the state, first in February 2002 when centres will be opened in Ranga Reddy district adjoining Hyderabad. These will be eventually integrated with the Andhra Pradesh portal (www.aponline.com) to be launched in January to facilitate 24x7 services. Central government departments are being linked. Electronic payment of telephone bills started on December 1. All this cost Rs 6 crore; each centre costs around Rs 30 lakh. However, the state government has managed to keep its own spending down to just Rs 5 lakh for each centre, tying up with hardware and software companies for the investment and maintenance of the centres.
-E. Kumar Sharma

ELECTRONIC LAND RECORD SYSTEMS. Karnataka, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh
Farmers at the mercy of the village patwari (revenue official) for their land records can now breathe easy in Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka. Andhra Pradesh's card (Computer-Aided Administration of Registration Department) is the pioneering effort in registering real-estate transactions. Starting with two centres in 1997, the Rs 25-crore project now covers 239 offices and some 24 lakh transactions have been registered till date. The registration process takes just an hour, against three to four days earlier. Punjab took a leaf out of Andhra's book and launched the prism (Punjab Registration Information System Module) project. Instead of pleading with and bribing the patwari for registration documents-needed when applying for loans-farmers now pay Rs 10 and instantly get the necessary documents. In Karnataka, thanks to the Bhoomi (land) project, most of the 17 million land records have been put on the internet since July 2000, at a cost of Rs 1.8 crore. Farmers now pay just Rs 15 for an instant printout of their papers, a far cry from the Rs 100-500 bribe they had to pay the patwari earlier. n
-E. Kumar Sharma & Venkatesha Babu

Five Bureaucrats Who Tried

HARSH MANDER
1996: Commissioner, Bilaspur division, Madhya Pradesh
Now: Country Director ActionAid India
Born: 1955. Batch: 1980
In October 1996, Harsh Mander, then commissioner of the Bilaspur division (now in Chhattisgarh), issued an order giving people the right to information about supplies to and offtake from the Public Distribution System (PDS). Almost half the foodgrain and sugar supplies were found to have been siphoned off into the open market. Mander then extended the scheme to the departments of public works, transport, employment, and pollution.

S.R. RAO
1995: Municipal Commissioner, Surat
Now: Chairman, Vizag Port Trust
Born: 1954. Batch: 1978
When S.R. Rao was sent to plague-ravaged Surat in May 1995, he was given one brief: don't let this happen again. Rao divided the municipal administration into six zones and delegated powers. Officers were penalised for laxity. Senior officers supervised sweeping of the streets.Unauthorised structures were demolished ruthlessly. Illegal hawkers were told they would be allowed to ply their trade if they kept their surroundings clean. Citizens groups were formed to ensure cleanliness. Tax collection was tightened.

JAYKAR JEROME
Commissioner, Bangalore Development Authority
Born: 1946. Batch: 1983
When Jaykar Jerome was given charge of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) in 2000, it was a moribund and corruption-ridden agency. Jerome toned up the administration and eliminated touts. Today, BDA is sitting on a cash pile of Rs 297 crore, earned through allotment of sites. ICRA has given the BDA a LAA (high safety) ranking without any sovereign guarantees. The BDA is now constructing flyovers and ring roads, technically the responsibility of the Bangalore City Corporation.

R. GOPALAKRISHNAN
Secretary to Chief Minister, Madhya Pradesh, and Mission Co-ordinator,
Rajiv Gandhi Mission
Born: 1955. Batch: 1979
The credit for Madhya Pradesh's developmental success story goes not just to chief minister Digvijay Singh but equally to R Gopalakrishnan, the sounding board and driving force of many of Singh's ideas. He has conceptualised the entire employment guarantee scheme (EGS), the Padhna-Badhna Andolan (Each One Teach One), and the watershed development programmes. His interest in watershed schemes goes back to the mid-1980s when, as Collector of Habua district, he initiated water harvesting programmes.

ARUN BHATIA
1999: Pune Municipal Commissioner
Now: Deputation to UNDP
Born: 1942. Batch: 1967
In his 34-year career, Arun Bhatia has been transferred 24 times. Bhatia has a history of battling corruption. In 1982, as Collector of Dhule district, he unearthed a multi-crore scandal in the Employment Guarantee scheme. He also took action against multinational companies for violations of the Drugs Act. As Mumbai Collector, he went after prominent builders violating floor-space index regulations.