BW Communities

Analysis: Rules And Compliance

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Each society needs to judge for itself how much it entrusts to the government — powers, duties, responsibilities. This evolves over time. Assessment of a system is always related to a point in time. What is relevant and good at a particular point of time may be irrelevant and even harmful at another.  The relevance of some of our Vedic injunctions in the present day bring out this point. All the teachings have an intrinsic permanent value and a temporal component — the stamp of the milieu in which the teachings were made. The latter cannot remain frozen over time. When one considers how to improve the system, one has to operate within a framework of certain ‘givens'. Absolute honesty and integrity or absolute adherence to rules can exist only on paper. And no political setup can ensure total compliance. In any society, there is always a compromise to bring about a balance of varying objectives. For example, efficiency and social justice, growth and equity, etc. As Professor Sarkar says, we cannot rubbish the government's power to make rules. The attempt should be to make rules that are by and large acceptable to the people so that a reasonably high compliance can be expected. Also, the rules should not be addressed to the dishonest, thereby making it difficult for the honest to comply. There has to be a balance between total selfishness at the cost of the society or public interest and total compliance at the cost of hurting oneself. In the olden days, a balancing factor was provided by moral values, convictions and fear of unpleasant consequences. Slowly, this is getting decimated. This is part of the cultural shift now experienced, that  Professor Sarkar speaks of. The emphasis has to be on imparting moral instruction at an impressionable age.  And there should be a system of rewards, side by side with penalty and deterrence. There are areas where implementational problems can be overcome by suitable changes in policy. The older generation will remember the rule requiring registration of wireless sets in the post office by paying a small fee. The basic objective was to raise revenue for the Department of Communications. Very few complied with the rule. Then the policy was changed. By suitably adjusting the rate of excise duty, the government could raise the same amount of revenue. Distribution of the revenue between the two departments of Revenue and Communications was an internal matter. This at once relieved the burden on the public while safeguarding the government's revenue. This underscores the need for ingenuity and innovation among policy makers. Corruption is related to the value system adopted by the society, including all three wings of government — executive, legislature and judiciary. It is wrong to assume that better compensation alone would reduce corruption. It is public experience that there are a large number of well-meaning, honest, helpful individuals in bureaucracy, very poorly paid, whose actions cannot be swayed by the lure of money. There are areas where specific measures can be taken to reduce corruption. Technology has helped to some extent — railway and air ticketing, obtaining a passport, online payment of tax, etc. In the final analysis, whether one chooses to be honest or otherwise depends on the attitude, which one acquires from family, friends and workplace, as also from the training one undergoes. Of the three components of training — knowledge, skill and attitude — the last is most difficult to impart. Mostly it has to be by personal example. That is where, in JK's case, the action of the bank manager to get JK's signature forged would have impacted the attitude of the staff, not merely in the bank's dealings but in their dealings with the society at large. In Manas Modi's case, the villain or the tilting event was the failure of the system to bring into the open the hollowness and mischievous nature of the allegation when he objected to the payment for the computer before its full installation. What can be done to tweak the system so that such cases do not become a common occurrence? The system should have the mechanism to sift complaints to expose  mala fide allegations. It is difficult to suggest a fit-all solution, as each institution has to make the best arrangement to get this result. One important aspect is to make sure that the conviction in the majority of the educated as well as the uneducated that nothing works without a mamool or hafta is taken away by projecting cases where things get done fast and in a routine manner. Undue publicity and excessive hype over cases of corruption to the total exclusion of good work done by different wings of the government is harming the system. There is a case, as Dasesh seems to hint, to curb the "over-performing" fourth estate in its trial by media, killing well-intentioned proposals, which is causing serious injury to the system. S. Venkatarama Iyer is a retired director general of Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, and was special secretary to the government of India (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 15-08-2011)