Corruption Can be Curbed
Everyday we read about the massive corruption in the Commonwealth Games activities. The electronic media brings the news relentlessly for 24 hours in all its sickening details. As a common citizen I feel an acute sense of revulsion at the scale and brazenness with which some people are ravaging my motherland. I feel a frustrating anger in the knowledge that the corruption cannot be stopped or punished. With the investigation methods and mechanisms in our country,- combined with the legal and judicial system we have evolved,- it is guaranteed that no powerful person will really pay for this corruption. The Coffin scam, Hawala Case, Food for Oil scam, Bhopal gas disaster, anti-Sikh riots, the riots in Gujarat are amongst the myriad cases that have proved that powerful criminals cannot be sent to prison in India. In the rarest of cases if they do go to prison they will spend their time on parole or in air conditioned hospitals. The ‘punishment’ of a wrongdoing can be becoming the Chief Justice of a small State.
Corruption and misgovernance have become our favourite reality shows and entertainment. In a few weeks media will have a new scandal to satisfy our need to be entertained, and perhaps after two decades the corruption surrounding the Commonwealth Games in 2010 will again provide some days of media material when an enquiry report is submitted on this. All of us know that not one powerful person will go to prison to atone for the thousands of crores of public money which have been looted. All those who put their hands in the till know this with complete certainty. We feel very angry about this corruption since it deprives the poorest citizens of their money. The mental picture in my mind is of greedy lechers snatching a morsel from the hands of a poor emaciated girl while molesting her. This corruption is responsible for grabbing the resources which could give the poorest people their food, education and access to healthcare. It is this corruption which provides the justification for the Maoist who picks up the gun.
So long as our current lethargic investigation and judicial delivery systems remain, it looks unlikely that we can stop this corruption. Is there no hope of being able to curtail this? There is another way which could act as a check on this rampant and brazen corruption. The Right to Information provides this path. Section 4 of the RTI Act mandates that information about all projects, sanctions, tenders etc. must be made available to Citizens. Most information about various Government bodies and their activities, must be declared suo moto. It must be published in a manner which ensures widespread dissemination, so that public have minimum resort to the RTI Act. Unfortunately Information Commissions and the Government have paid very little attention to the requirements of Section 4 and its implementation. If details of all the money being spent on the Commonwealth Games projects, their deadlines, the terms and conditions of the contracts had been put on the websites and continuously updated, the brazen purchase of things at 10 or 20 times their worth may not have been possible. When information about all this is in public domain, various people would have sounded the alarm if anything very brazen was being done. If people knew about the deadlines for the works, the budgeted amounts and the overruns they would have questioned the authorities. The fact that information about all transactions was to be put in public domain would have acted as a check on the officers who were plundering the Nation.
The RTI Act had stipulated that this must be done in 2005. Even now if the Information Commissions, Governments, Citizens and media start focussing on implementation of Section 4 as per the RTI Act in letter and spirit we could begin the journey towards curbing corruption. Our Independence would be meaningful and we would have reason to be optimistic.
shailesh gandhi
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Information Commision goes digital
The picture of a typical Indian government office is quite bleak – thousands of files stacked up everywhere, files moving from one table to next for approval, a clerk taking hours to find one file and if you are unfortunate your file may have gone ‘missing’. But all this can be thing of the past. And the solution is not rocket science. It is very basic computer science!
Until three months back, my office had 9000 files – stacked in various cupboards and shelves. We kept running of cupboards and filing cabinets. Despite having a reasonably efficient staff to locate the files and a well-organised office, on an average it would take five minutes to locate a file. My office receives about 1800 communications a month on an average through post, fax and email. Each of these communications has to be looked into, responded to and then time was spent in putting these pieces of papers and the response, if any, in the correct files. I realized soon that the space available for record keeping as well as efficient record keepers cannot keep up with the escalating numbers of records to be maintained. The Information Commission has decided to digitize all records.
So, my office has adopted a simple yet reliable solution to the problem – we have gone digital! Over the past three months all the 9000 files have been scanned and are now available on the office network for any member of the staff to access. About two weeks back, we stopped receiving paper and started accepting the digital image every day. All new communications come to my office after they have been scanned and it is the soft copy of the communication and the response sent, if any, which is appended with the soft copy of the correct file. For emails, earlier we used to print them and put them in the file. Now we attach the email to the appropriate electronic folder.
A very simple computer program, which is easily duplicable, has been created to manage the work in the office. The program not only makes all files available to every member of the staff at all times, but it also means that any new action taken on the files gets linked to the original file with the click of the mouse. Only letters which have to be sent by the office are printed. Drafts of orders, notices, and other types of communications are reviewed on the computer before printing. I estimate that we would be saving about 20,000 sheets of paper in the next twelve months.
Digital record keeping is definitely the way forward in any office – government or otherwise. The Preamble of the Information Technology Act states that it is an Act to facilitate electronic filing of documents with Government Agencies. Section 4 of the Act provides legal recognition to electronic records; Section 5 provides legal recognition to digital signatures; and Section 7 states that if record is to be retained for a particular period of time it would be deemed to have satisfied that rule if it is available in an electronic format.
While I admit that my office is relatively ‘young’ and most records are less than two years old, I believe that more government offices can move towards making their records electronic. Computer programs can be created and customized to suit the work flow of each office. Not only would record keeping become easier and locating records be a click of a mouse away, incidents of missing records would be minimal. Back-ups of the electronic data can be stored in multiple places, even in a different city, thereby avoiding loss of the records due to fire, floods, etc. If necessary physical records can be kept for a short period of time till it is ascertained that the electronic records are legible and complete.
Any changes made to records could be traced back to the system from which the changes were made. This would promote transparency and accountability in the office and reduce corruption. A lot of corruption takes place by losing records or removing papers or substituting papers. The other way is predating papers. All of this could be caught, once an office goes digital. The computer program can also help to gauge the productivity of the staff as well as it could indicate who is taking how long to complete a particular task. The cost of going digital is a fraction of the cost incurred in record keeping. There would be other small but significant cost savings in the form of less usage of paper, files, printer ink, etc. More importantly, decision making becomes faster as time taken to transfer a file from one table or one office to another for approval/signing would get cut down as everything would be available over the internet or intranet.
My office was able to make the transformation in a very short span of time and with no requirement for any additional budget. Simple changes can make a big difference –all we need to do to make those simple changes is to set our mind to it. If all Government offices go digital, the impact on governance and transparency could be huge. As byproducts we could get a reduction of corruption and paper usage.
shailesh gandhi
June 21, 2010
Until three months back, my office had 9000 files – stacked in various cupboards and shelves. We kept running of cupboards and filing cabinets. Despite having a reasonably efficient staff to locate the files and a well-organised office, on an average it would take five minutes to locate a file. My office receives about 1800 communications a month on an average through post, fax and email. Each of these communications has to be looked into, responded to and then time was spent in putting these pieces of papers and the response, if any, in the correct files. I realized soon that the space available for record keeping as well as efficient record keepers cannot keep up with the escalating numbers of records to be maintained. The Information Commission has decided to digitize all records.
So, my office has adopted a simple yet reliable solution to the problem – we have gone digital! Over the past three months all the 9000 files have been scanned and are now available on the office network for any member of the staff to access. About two weeks back, we stopped receiving paper and started accepting the digital image every day. All new communications come to my office after they have been scanned and it is the soft copy of the communication and the response sent, if any, which is appended with the soft copy of the correct file. For emails, earlier we used to print them and put them in the file. Now we attach the email to the appropriate electronic folder.
A very simple computer program, which is easily duplicable, has been created to manage the work in the office. The program not only makes all files available to every member of the staff at all times, but it also means that any new action taken on the files gets linked to the original file with the click of the mouse. Only letters which have to be sent by the office are printed. Drafts of orders, notices, and other types of communications are reviewed on the computer before printing. I estimate that we would be saving about 20,000 sheets of paper in the next twelve months.
Digital record keeping is definitely the way forward in any office – government or otherwise. The Preamble of the Information Technology Act states that it is an Act to facilitate electronic filing of documents with Government Agencies. Section 4 of the Act provides legal recognition to electronic records; Section 5 provides legal recognition to digital signatures; and Section 7 states that if record is to be retained for a particular period of time it would be deemed to have satisfied that rule if it is available in an electronic format.
While I admit that my office is relatively ‘young’ and most records are less than two years old, I believe that more government offices can move towards making their records electronic. Computer programs can be created and customized to suit the work flow of each office. Not only would record keeping become easier and locating records be a click of a mouse away, incidents of missing records would be minimal. Back-ups of the electronic data can be stored in multiple places, even in a different city, thereby avoiding loss of the records due to fire, floods, etc. If necessary physical records can be kept for a short period of time till it is ascertained that the electronic records are legible and complete.
Any changes made to records could be traced back to the system from which the changes were made. This would promote transparency and accountability in the office and reduce corruption. A lot of corruption takes place by losing records or removing papers or substituting papers. The other way is predating papers. All of this could be caught, once an office goes digital. The computer program can also help to gauge the productivity of the staff as well as it could indicate who is taking how long to complete a particular task. The cost of going digital is a fraction of the cost incurred in record keeping. There would be other small but significant cost savings in the form of less usage of paper, files, printer ink, etc. More importantly, decision making becomes faster as time taken to transfer a file from one table or one office to another for approval/signing would get cut down as everything would be available over the internet or intranet.
My office was able to make the transformation in a very short span of time and with no requirement for any additional budget. Simple changes can make a big difference –all we need to do to make those simple changes is to set our mind to it. If all Government offices go digital, the impact on governance and transparency could be huge. As byproducts we could get a reduction of corruption and paper usage.
shailesh gandhi
June 21, 2010
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