Now that Lokpal is over we need to start looking at Votepal which I am assuming like the Lokpal will be above everyone including the PM.
The primary aim is to have a check on the politicians (which has become a bad word!) and have a balance with civil society giving them at least a slight majority. We need to achieve a stage where the elections will happen only once every 5 years to avoid unnecessary expenses.
Since normal Civil Society can never compete in our elections we need to provide a 33% reservation to non politicians. This would mean anyone who does not have primary membership in any political party but are members of any of the Civil Society organizations (whatever that means!).
Also on the non reserved seats we can have an option to Reject all candidates and under such a scenario the Votepal panel will have the right to nominate the representative and which party they should belong to. This is to avoid unnecessary expense by repeated elections.
With these two points of Reservation and Option to Reject if the non-politicians can't get a majority then we will have the right to Recall. This is similar to Operation Lotus that happened in Karnataka so that some of the politicians can be recalled (forced to resign). The Votepal will have the right to take proactive action towards this as the voters in the constituency may be scared to complain.
This will ensure that the control will be with the party that the Votepal panel chooses as they understand what is best for the country.
Now finally the Lokpal and Votepal can live happily ever after....and the aam aadmi who are represented by the civil society will be in a position to pass any law required!
While most of my other articles are serious wild thoughts this stops at being wild thoughts but nothing serious. I am sure Team Anna and other Civil Society members will come up with good suggestions for Electoral reforms.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Lokpal was not required for these...
I am trying to classify various acts/instances/irritants we have faced, how some have been solved already and if lokpal is required to solve the other problems. I am not sure how many of the solutions we see below were done by passing laws that provided for stiff punishments. I think there are enough laws to take care of these already. We need simplification of rules, transparency, automation and processes which are well defined and has time limits. I think in all offices there should be a tatkal and regular which can be done by higher fee payment which can be used to increase the staff. The entire day should be recorded on video for both the user and the staff's safety and to prevent bribing. This should be made mandatory especially in offices where the user has to go in person like an RTO for example. Ideally these videos should be viewable by inspectors on an internet connection. Now here are some instances I could think of and some that were reminded by friends when talking about the changes we have seen that have helped. Please add other instances you can think of. Here are the few I have listed which makes this long...
1) To buy a 2 rupee bus ticket, conductor ask for 1 rupee and does not give a ticket. Obviously pockets the money.
This would probably have been categorized as petty theft by the conductor but the passenger would be co-accused for not paying the full amount and insisting on a ticket. This was just being convenient for both parties involved and so no one would have complained but ends up causing losses.
Early on this was solved by providing targets and penalizing conductors by having surprise inspections and also having some kind of a lucky dip on the tickets itself so passengers insisted on taking them. Now you also have automatic ticketing machines inside the bus and online ticket reservation system in place and the surprise inspection still continues.
2) We need a copy of the land records. Official fee used to be Rs. 10 to 15 but the guy who needs to give us says, come tomorrow, come next week and so on unless you give a bribe. This was a pain in the rural areas.
This was harassment and small level of corruption where the person was misusing his position to force a bribe and corruption that caused irritation.
This was solved by computerizing the records and on payment of a fee you are given a challan which when produced the guy at the kiosk gives a print out. This and many more benefits have accrued from the Bhoomi project and recently records have been made available on the internet and the survey maps have started getting entered in GIS.
3) The police verification is needed for the passport process to be completed. The police needs to send the police verification without which the passport does not proceed. So you have to keep going to the police station to find the writer and see how to get this speeded up.
This was again misuse of their position and your urgency in getting the passport. Sure case of harassment by delay to get what they can from you leading to corruption of irritation and leaving you helpless.
This has been solved by providing a fixed period of 30 days or so before which the police report needs to be sent. If not the passport office assumes there is no issue and proceeds. This has made the writer to come looking for you now to show he is doing his job and requests to give him what you can. This is now more like tips given for a service rendered. Off course the passport process itself is very well automated and streamlined.
4) You want to register a property and you are doing everything within the rules. You already calculate 10% which includes the bribe to be given to the sub registrar and his office for what he/she is supposed to do anyway.
This is something that most of us budget as part of the registration fee. In fact more than this the buyer will want to pay by cash with an intent of of reducing the registration fee. In this case I believe the buyer/seller is more corrupt if they do this even compared to the sub registrars office.
This I think needs to be addressed to reduce the black money growth. Make sure the market value reflects the actual value. At least have the rate taken from the average of the past so many number of transactions or over past so many months. Also reduce the registration fee percentage from around 8% to maybe 2 or 3% similar to the agent commission.
5) Go to renew driving license you are made to run from one counter to another to make you feel that it is a really tough job to get this done. Magically you are pushed towards an agent who has a shop just outside the RTO.
Most of the process is set in place but people are not made aware. The agent thrives on the irritant factor. This irritation can easily be removed by making it mandatory to have the steps clearly outlined and have a counter system similar to the bank. Here I believe things are simplified quite a bit but is not brought out clearly which is what someone can work on. The good thing here is once the forms are all submitted and the photographs taken you are sure of getting the license. There are either the agents or many folks there trying to show they are helping and expect a tip which can be made official support organization in some way for which people will not mind.
6) Trying to get the completion certificate for the house the inspector wants to do an inspection, finds no issues. Asks for a bunch of drawings, papers, once all those are there he tries to find a technicality. Keeps delaying to see how urgent your need is.
The inspector wants to find violations which he can help waive by showing incorrectly in his inspection report and get money against that. If this is the case again no irritation to the builder as he wants the completion done. The inspector gives a false report and if caught later on can always say some portions were built after the inspection. This is total misuse of office and if found the inspector needs to be heavily penalized. All the buildings should be put in GIS and periodic reviews should be done.
In the case where the builder is clean things should be solved by providing a timeline before which it should be mandatory to provide with the completion certificate or a in writing why it can't be done.
I can think of many more cases where it was worse earlier and has improved over the years. I can also think of many cases which I have faced will not be solved by another legislation that still assumes we will complain. Just some thoughts to see if there is a need for a lokpal to cover all these or leave the lokpal at the high level misuse and abuse cases focusing on the people in higher positions.
1) To buy a 2 rupee bus ticket, conductor ask for 1 rupee and does not give a ticket. Obviously pockets the money.
This would probably have been categorized as petty theft by the conductor but the passenger would be co-accused for not paying the full amount and insisting on a ticket. This was just being convenient for both parties involved and so no one would have complained but ends up causing losses.
Early on this was solved by providing targets and penalizing conductors by having surprise inspections and also having some kind of a lucky dip on the tickets itself so passengers insisted on taking them. Now you also have automatic ticketing machines inside the bus and online ticket reservation system in place and the surprise inspection still continues.
2) We need a copy of the land records. Official fee used to be Rs. 10 to 15 but the guy who needs to give us says, come tomorrow, come next week and so on unless you give a bribe. This was a pain in the rural areas.
This was harassment and small level of corruption where the person was misusing his position to force a bribe and corruption that caused irritation.
This was solved by computerizing the records and on payment of a fee you are given a challan which when produced the guy at the kiosk gives a print out. This and many more benefits have accrued from the Bhoomi project and recently records have been made available on the internet and the survey maps have started getting entered in GIS.
3) The police verification is needed for the passport process to be completed. The police needs to send the police verification without which the passport does not proceed. So you have to keep going to the police station to find the writer and see how to get this speeded up.
This was again misuse of their position and your urgency in getting the passport. Sure case of harassment by delay to get what they can from you leading to corruption of irritation and leaving you helpless.
This has been solved by providing a fixed period of 30 days or so before which the police report needs to be sent. If not the passport office assumes there is no issue and proceeds. This has made the writer to come looking for you now to show he is doing his job and requests to give him what you can. This is now more like tips given for a service rendered. Off course the passport process itself is very well automated and streamlined.
4) You want to register a property and you are doing everything within the rules. You already calculate 10% which includes the bribe to be given to the sub registrar and his office for what he/she is supposed to do anyway.
This is something that most of us budget as part of the registration fee. In fact more than this the buyer will want to pay by cash with an intent of of reducing the registration fee. In this case I believe the buyer/seller is more corrupt if they do this even compared to the sub registrars office.
This I think needs to be addressed to reduce the black money growth. Make sure the market value reflects the actual value. At least have the rate taken from the average of the past so many number of transactions or over past so many months. Also reduce the registration fee percentage from around 8% to maybe 2 or 3% similar to the agent commission.
5) Go to renew driving license you are made to run from one counter to another to make you feel that it is a really tough job to get this done. Magically you are pushed towards an agent who has a shop just outside the RTO.
Most of the process is set in place but people are not made aware. The agent thrives on the irritant factor. This irritation can easily be removed by making it mandatory to have the steps clearly outlined and have a counter system similar to the bank. Here I believe things are simplified quite a bit but is not brought out clearly which is what someone can work on. The good thing here is once the forms are all submitted and the photographs taken you are sure of getting the license. There are either the agents or many folks there trying to show they are helping and expect a tip which can be made official support organization in some way for which people will not mind.
6) Trying to get the completion certificate for the house the inspector wants to do an inspection, finds no issues. Asks for a bunch of drawings, papers, once all those are there he tries to find a technicality. Keeps delaying to see how urgent your need is.
The inspector wants to find violations which he can help waive by showing incorrectly in his inspection report and get money against that. If this is the case again no irritation to the builder as he wants the completion done. The inspector gives a false report and if caught later on can always say some portions were built after the inspection. This is total misuse of office and if found the inspector needs to be heavily penalized. All the buildings should be put in GIS and periodic reviews should be done.
In the case where the builder is clean things should be solved by providing a timeline before which it should be mandatory to provide with the completion certificate or a in writing why it can't be done.
I can think of many more cases where it was worse earlier and has improved over the years. I can also think of many cases which I have faced will not be solved by another legislation that still assumes we will complain. Just some thoughts to see if there is a need for a lokpal to cover all these or leave the lokpal at the high level misuse and abuse cases focusing on the people in higher positions.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
No need for Lokpal...
I am not sure why we need more laws and legislation. We hear the Jan Lokpal saying that we need Lokpal as an institution, independent of the Judiciary and the Executive and basically be nominated by say a panel of various eminent personalities. Now we have the police, the CBI, the Vigilance department which are all supposed to take care of criminal and corruption angles.
I can't understand why we can't just say that heads of these institutions such as CBI, the Vigilance department and the head of police in each state will be nominated by a panel instead of the existing methodology where some of these are political.
We have to see how we can get the heads of various boards such as the housing boards etc. also be nominated by a panel of eminent personalities.
Doing this and putting in systems of transparency and simplification of the rules should help in a big way to break the politician-institution nexus and hence make it difficult to be corrupt. I am sure we will be able to get enough heads of institutions who are clean and then allow them to enforce the cleanliness top down. Then making sure that these heads have the final say in terms of transfers etc will ensure that each of these departments work independently.
Just my wild thoughts on changing the existing rather than yet another institution.
I can't understand why we can't just say that heads of these institutions such as CBI, the Vigilance department and the head of police in each state will be nominated by a panel instead of the existing methodology where some of these are political.
We have to see how we can get the heads of various boards such as the housing boards etc. also be nominated by a panel of eminent personalities.
Doing this and putting in systems of transparency and simplification of the rules should help in a big way to break the politician-institution nexus and hence make it difficult to be corrupt. I am sure we will be able to get enough heads of institutions who are clean and then allow them to enforce the cleanliness top down. Then making sure that these heads have the final say in terms of transfers etc will ensure that each of these departments work independently.
Just my wild thoughts on changing the existing rather than yet another institution.
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