‘If You Are Living In A Low-Trust Society, It Creates Higher Costs’
The former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax Hardayal Singh on Saturday vouched for a society that is built on trust. He was of opinion that a society running on low trust incurs higher costs.
Speaking at IBLF 2022, Singh said if one is living in a society in which they trust, it reaps long-term benefits – even if some people misuse the trust.
“Based on my experience, trust begets trust,” he said.
He added that the current society we live in is a no-trust society but he welcomed the government’s move to make trust inclusive by allowing citizens to attest their own documents without going to a gazetted officer.
“If they turn on to you and attest wrongly, certainly, action can be taken against them. But the initial move to create trust has been taken by the government. And I think that's a good step,” Singh said.
On his book ‘The Moral Compass,’ Singh said that its idea is to help people focus on their problems, introspect and find their own solutions based on good conscience. He further emphasised that the book does not offer any instant solutions.
He said that the reason for writing this book was to do some research and find out how objectivity and fairness can be restored in times when decision-making involves personal involvement. Singh noted that
“In a sense, you can say that the book is all about ‘dharma’. This is a concept that is thousands of years old and its beauty is that it's flexible. Each generation has reinterpreted it to suit the changed circumstances. And you'll find in the book also that all 17 characters have tried to follow the path of dharma but have come to different conclusions. Each of them is valid in its own context,” Singh said.
