A rotten state

INDIANS' irritation over rising dishonesty has reached agitated levels. What folks are calling a “term of scam” include the alleged theft of billions by officials behind last year's Commonwealth games in Delhi; $40 billion in revenues lost as of the warped sale of 2G telecoms licences; and over $40 billion stolen in Uttar Pradesh alone from schemes subsidising food and fuel for the poor.

Foreign businessmen, who have slashed speculation over the past year, rank graft as their biggest annoyance behind appalling infrastructure. Now India's anti-corruption chief have been forced out over, well, corruption (see article).

Graft is hardly new in India: the Bofors scandal bring down the regime in 1989. But convenient seems to be more of it about than ever, if only because India is getting richer fast, and the faster the economy grows, the more chances arise for mind-boggling theft. The government says that in the next five-year plan period, which starts next year, $1 trillion will be spent on roads, railways, ports and so on, with billions more on re-equipping the armed forces and welfare. Add in an insatiable appetite for scarce land, water and reserves and a downpour of bribes is forecast

Some are disposed in the direction of shrug their shoulder. After all, fraud does not give the impression to be stopping India from growing. Yet imagine how much better the country would be doing without it. fraud raises costs not just to Indians, but also to the foreigners whose capital India needs. Thanks in part to those scandals, India's stockmarket was the worst-performing outside the Muslim world over the past year.

To its glory, the management has begin to take action adjacent to powerful individuals. Maharashtra state's chief minister was forced out over a property scandal. Police have quizzed Suresh Kalmadi, the policy-maker who ran the Commonwealth games. Most strikingly, Andimuthu Raja, the cabinet minister who oversaw the 2G telecom licences, was arrested.

A 2005 act open-handed the right to in rank is receive, as are auction for public produce, such as preceding year's useful sale of the 3G telecom variety. expertise is helping. into some states, bid for state convention are being run online, allowing anti-corruption bodies to monitor them. Gujarat does this for all contracts over 500,000 rupees ($11,000). It also puts land files and death certificate online, critical down on lone figure of petty join. Websites, led by ipaidabribe.com, expose the cost of join by publicising the sums exact for nothing from registering a baby to fixing a not working water supply.

The central rule should now realize a plan for a universal, computerised ID method. It would allow benefit payments to be paid into individuals' bank the books, hindering theft by state labour.

Most of all, India must redouble its efforts to liberalise. The status could farm out official odd jobs, cut red gum tie and sell careless and corrupt public firms (why does the government make watches?). For every that the “licence Raj” was hypothetically scrapped two decades ago, it can still take nearly 200 days to get a manufacture sanction and seven existence to close a business. convention are not, by and hefty, deterrents to corruption, but a source of it.