Cost of Corruption and who pays for it?

I wonder if one realizes the cost of corruption in Rupee terms unless one sits down to analyze the monetary impact on the common man. Corruption in India is rampant and a cancer which is eating away into the moral fiber of the country at the same time making the population cynical, with most people saying “what can we do? – our country is like this only”. For one, you can say that you will not participate in corruption at the individual level – it could be as minor as passing on ten bucks to the traffic cop who stops you for a traffic violation.

If citizens participate in corruption, this becomes a self perpetuating cycle with everyone wanting to take the easy way out. With this attitude what happens? The people in power (read Government) or wearing a uniform as a symbol of power, know that they can always extract their pound of undesirable flesh as the common man does not have a choice. One pays to get legitimate work done, even with all legal clearances in place, thus the cost of executing that job just keeps going up. It could be a road construction contract, a building contract, or any of the innumerable tenders which the Government floats every year. You are all aware of the Adarsh Housing Society scam, the Telecom scandal and the recently concluded Commonwealth Games scandals.

It is public money which was abused for the Commonwealth Games, Government lost money by giving away land cheaply for the Adarsh Housing scandal, the telecom scandal has reportedly cost the ex-chequer Rs. 1.7 lakh crores! All these costs keep adding up and the Government instead of rationalizing taxes and reducing the tax burden on the common man increases it by way of cesses and surcharge. These cesses and surcharge continue even after the cess/surcharge levied has served its purpose. All this leads to high living costs. For people living in Mumbai, buying a house is like a distant dream. A 2BHK apartment in far of suburbs like Dahisar cost upwards of Rs. 90 lakhs.

Yesterday I was speaking to a builder who accepts only cheque payments, he mentioned that after buying a property from a landlord, registering it, obtaining approvals from all tenants, the proposal after being passed by the Urban Development Ministry went to the ex-Chief Minister for final approval. This proposal was a completely above board all approvals in place, all pay-offs done, but it was delayed for more than eight months as the Chief Minister delayed in affixing his signature. According to him the cost of delay in commencing the work to his company was Rs. 1 lakh per day. When we asked him who bears this cost, he says he passes it on to the consumer – basically the end-user, the man on the street is the guy who pays for all this corruption. No wonder property prices in Mumbai are amongst the highest in the world!

Apart from the huge financial cost to the common man due to corruption at every level of Government, the sad part is the common man ends up bearing the burden of this corruption by paying for it through higher prices and higher taxes. It is high time we start saying no to corruption and force the Government to have HONEST people in the various vigilance departments. At least let us try and make a beginning by having our vigilance forces transparent and above board and not like the CBI which has exonerated Haryana Police Chief of charges in the remaining three cases, thereby allowing the Supreme Court to let a convicted rapist and an abuser of power to walk free!