Revisiting the subject of Solutions to Corruption

Dear Friends,

In a recent circle poll, Fighting Corruption was suggested as the single most important priority that the Modi Government should take up.

Couple of months back when our circle had 65,000 citizens, we had put together a whitepaper on Corruption Issues, Root Causes and Solutions and submitted it to the PMO and several ministries.

Now that we have close to 150,000 citizens in our circle, we want to re-open the subject of Solutions to Corruption again.

The solutions to corruption needed have been broken down into:
1) General Corruption Solutions
2) Citizen to Government Corruptions Solutions
3) Business to Government Corruption Solutions
Kindly review them below and propose any other additional solutions that have not been included below.

We will include the specific and implementable solutions in the revised version of the whitepaper and also submit it to the PMO, associated Ministries, Industry Associations of India and a few leading bodies engaged in the cause of Fighting Corruption in India.

I look forward to your inputs!

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solutions to Corruption

General Solutions

1. Fast track processing of all corruption related cases
2. Strong and timely punishments to the ones proven guilty of corruption
3. Development of an effective and adequate electoral funding mechanism
4. Implementation of an easy to access feedback and rating mechanisms for Government Offices, Officers, Elected Representatives and Businesses.
5. Mandatory Moral Values education in school curriculums
6. Mandatory inclusion of Anti-Corruption as a subject in all college curriculums
7. Social Awareness programs against Corruption and Bribery for Citizens

Citizen to Government Corruption Solutions

1. Setting up of a National Corruption Hotline enabling citizens to report corruption online and via phone call
2. Setting up an effective grievance redressal mechanism for corruption cases
3. Elimination of human interface with electronic interface for every possible Government-Citizen transaction
4. Elimination of cash transactions at Government Departments
5. Target and Performance oriented objectives and reviews for all Government Employees with a pre-defined incentive plan
6. Time Bound Delivery targets for Government Departments with predefined penalties for inaction/delays affecting the Department and Individual responsible
7. Establish Key Performance Indicators for all Government departments and publishing them daily/weekly is made a mandatory requirement.
8. Institute awards at departmental and individual levels recognizing results
9. Institute National Level Integrity awards
10. Training of front line Government Employees on Customer Service
11. Outsourced Process Awareness desk and self-serve kiosks for citizens at every Government office
12. Outsourced computerization of old Government records
13. Prohibition of entry for agents/middle from all Government offices (Similar to visas for some countries)
14. Annual Declaration of total assets held for all Government employees
15. Implementation of an electronic and documentation oriented recruitment process for all Government jobs.
16. Creation of an online citizen community/circle for every constituency, every ministry and every Government department.

Business to Government Corruption Solutions

1. Setting up of a Business Corruption Hotline enabling businesses to report corruption online and via phone call
2. Setting up an effective grievance redressal mechanism for businesses for any corruption or violation of ethics cases
3. Implementation of a time bound electronic qualification, quotation, tendering, ordering and payment mechanism for all Government procurements
4. Removal of all Ministerial and Bureaucratic discretionary powers from the supplier selection process
5. Elimination of cash transactions at Government Departments
6. All public sector enterprises of India to have a Board comprising of at least 2 accomplished private sector professionals as independent Directors
7. All public sector enterprises to sign a national integrity pact with independent monitors and board level reporting of all corruption cases.
8. All public sector and Government officials to provide an undertaking of no personal direct or indirect associations with companies they are transacting Government business
9. All Government employees to exchange information with businesses using Government email ids. No email exchange permissible via personal emails.
10. Prohibition of all agents in Business to Government transactions
11. Detailed documentation requirement for listed companies on un-receipted cash and miscellaneous expenses
12. Mandatory requirement for all listed corporates to have an Ethics and Compliance function with direct reporting to the Board of Directors more